than any he could give her, which so long as she should keep she should esteem herself richer than all the Princes of the earth that were without it. If the Prince, his son, knew any thing to her dishonor, let him tell it. And here she challenged Leucippus before his father to speak the worst of her. If he would, however, sacrifice a woman's character to please an unjust humor of the Duke's, she saw no remedy, she said, now he was dead (meaning her late husband) that with his life would have defended her reputation.
Thus appealed to, Leucippus, who had stood a while astonished at her confident falsehoods, though ignorant of the full drift of them, considering that not the reputation only, but probably the life of a woman whom he had so loved, and who had made such sacrifices to him of love and beauty, depended upon his absolute concealment of their contract, framed his mouth to a compassionate untruth, and with solemn asseverations confirmed to his father her assurances of her innocence. He denied not that with rich gifts he had assailed her virtue, but had found her relentless to his solicitations; that gold nor greatness had any power over her. Nay, so far he went on to give force to the protestations of this artful woman, that he confessed to having offered marriage to her, which she, who scorned to listen to any second wedlock, had rejected.
All this while Leucippus secretly prayed to Heaven to forgive him while he uttered these bold untruths, since it was for the prevention of a greater mischief only, and had no malice in it.
But, warned by the sad sequel which ensued, be thou careful, young reader, how in any case you tell a lie. Lie not, if any man but ask you, "How you do?" or "What o'clock it is?" Be sure you make no false excuse to screen a friend that is most dear to you. Never let the most well-intended falsehood escape your lips. For Heaven, which is entirely Truth, will make the seed which you have sown of Untruth to yield miseries a thousand-fold upon yours, as it did upon the head of the ill-fated and mistaken Leucippus.
Leontius, finding the assurances of Bacha so confidently seconded by his son, could no longer withhold his belief, and, only forbidding their meeting for the future, took a courteous leave of the lady, presenting her at the same time with a valuable ring, in recompense, as he said, of the injustice which he had done her in his false surmises of her guiltiness. In truth, the surpassing beauty of the lady, with her appearing modesty, had made no less impression upon the heart of the fond old Duke than they had awakened in the bosom of his more pardonable son. His first design was to make her his mistress; to the better accomplishing of which Leucippus was dismissed from the court, under the pretext of some honorable employment abroad. In his absence, Leontius spared no offers to induce her to comply with his purpose. Continually he solicited her with rich offers, with messages, and by personal visits. It was a ridiculous sight if it were not rather a sad one, to behold this second and worse dotage, which by Cupid's wrath had fallen upon this fantastical old new lover. All his occupation now was in dressing and pranking himself up in youthful attire to please the eyes of his new mistress. His mornings were employed in the devising of trim fashions, in the company of tailors, embroiderers, and feather-dressers. So infatuated was he with these vanities, that when a servant came and told him that his daughter was dead—even she, whom he had but lately so highly prized—the words seemed spoken to a deaf person. He either could not or would not understand them; but, like one senseless, fell to babbling about the shape of a new hose and doublet. His crutch, the faithful prop of long aged years, was discarded; and he resumed the youthful fashion of a sword by his side, when his years wanted strength to have drawn it. In this condition of folly it was no difficult task for the widow, by affected pretenses of honour and arts of amorous denial, to draw in this doting Duke to that which she had all along aimed at, the offer of his crown in marriage. She was now Duchess of Lycia! In her new elevation the mask was quickly thrown aside, and the impious Bacha appeared in her true qualities. She had never loved the Duke her husband, but had used him as the instrument of her greatness. Taking advantage of his amorous folly, which seemed to gain growth the nearer he approached to his grave, she took upon her the whole rule of Lycia; placing and displacing at her will all the great officers of state; and filling the court with creatures of her own, the agents of her guilty pleasures, she removed from the Duke's person the oldest and trustiest of his dependents.
Leucippus, who at this juncture was returned from his foreign mission, was met at once with the news of his sister's death and the strange wedlock of the old Duke. To the memory of Hidaspes he gave some tears. But these were swiftly swallowed up in his horror and detestation of the conduct of Bacha. In his first fury he resolved upon a full disclosure of all that had passed between him and his wicked step-mother. Again he thought, by killing Bacha, to rid the world of a monster. But tenderness for his father recalled him to milder counsels. The fatal secret, nevertheless, sat upon him like lead, while he was determined to confide it to no other. It took his sleep away, and his desire of food; and if a thought of mirth at any time crossed him the dreadful truth would recur to check it, as if a messenger should have come to whisper to him of some friend's death! With difficulty he was brought to wish their Highnesses faint joy of their marriage; and, at the first sight of Bacha, a friend was fain to hold his wrist hard to prevent him from fainting. In an interview which after, at her request, he had with her alone, the bad woman shamed not to take up the subject lightly; to treat as a trifle the marriage vow that had passed between them; and seeing him sad and silent, to threaten him with the displeasure of the Duke, his father, if by words or looks he gave any suspicion to the world of their dangerous secret. "What had happened," she said, "was by no fault of hers. People would have thought her mad if she had refused the Duke's offer. She had used no arts to entrap his father. It was Leucippus's own resolute denial of any such thing as a contract having passed between them which had led to the proposal."
The Prince, unable to extenuate his share of blame in the calamity, humbly besought her, that "since by his own great fault things had been brought to their present pass, she would only live honest for the future; and not abuse the credulous age of the old Duke, as he well knew she had the power to do. For himself, seeing that life was no longer desirable to him, if his death was judged by her to be indispensable to her security, she was welcome to lay what trains she pleased to compass it, so long as she would only suffer his father to go to his grave in peace, since he had never wronged her."
This temperate appeal was lost upon the heart of Bacha, who from that moment was secretly bent upon effecting the destruction of Leucippus. Her project was, by feeding the ears of the Duke with exaggerated praises of his son, to awaken a jealousy in the old man that she secretly preferred Leucippus. Next, by wilfully insinuating the great popularity of the Prince (which was no more indeed than the truth) among the Lycians, to instill subtle fears into the Duke that his son had laid plots for circumventing his life and throne. By these arts, she was working upon the weak mind of the Duke almost to distraction, when, at a meeting, concocted by herself between the Prince and his father, the latter taking Leucippus soundly to task for these alleged treasons, the Prince replied only by humbly drawing his sword, with the intention of laying it at his father's feet, and begging him, since he suspected him, to sheathe it in his own bosom, for of his life he had been long weary. Bacha entered at the crisis, and ere Leucippus could finish his submission, with loud outcries alarmed the courtiers, who, rushing into the presence, found the Prince, with sword in hand indeed, but with far other intentions than this bad woman imputed to him, plainly accusing him of having drawn it upon his father! Leucippus was quickly disarmed; and the old Duke, trembling between fear and age, committed him to close prison, from which, by Bacha's aims, he never should have come out alive but for the interference of the common people, who, loving their Prince, and equally detesting Bacha, in a simultaneous mutiny, arose and rescued him from the hands of the officers.
The court was now no longer a place of living for Leucippus, and, hastily thanking his countrymen for his deliverance, which in his heart he rather deprecated than welcomed, as one that wished for death, he took leave of all court hopes, and, abandoning the palace, betook himself to a life of penitence in solitudes.
Not so secretly did he select his place of penance, in a cave among lonely woods and fastnesses, but that his retreat was traced by Bacha; who, baffled in her purpose, raging like some she-wolf, dispatched an emissary of her own to destroy him privately.
