Rafael Sabatini

“ It was Holles's turn to be surprised, and out of his surprise he spoke: "Your grace has been expecting me?"
"These many years. It was foretold me that we should meet again—aye, and that for a time our lives should run intertwined in their courses."
"Foretold?" ejaculated Holles. Instantly he bethought him of the superstitions which had made him cling to that jewel through every stress of fortune. "How foretold? By whom?" he asked.
The question seemed to arouse the Duke from the brooding into which he had fallen. ”

“ But Miss Farquharson was none so disposed, it seemed, to the devout thanksgiving he advised.
"Is your grace often east of Temple Bar?" was her next rallying question.
"Are you?" quoth he, possibly for lack of better answer.
"So seldom that the coincidence transcends all that yourself or Mr. Dryden could have invented for one of your plays."
"Life is marvellously coincident," the Duke reflected, conceiving obtuseness to be the proper wear for the innocence he pretended. "Coincidence is the salt that rescues existence from insipidity." ”

“ His eyes continued to search that lean countenance. "Aye!" he added after a moment, and it sounded like a sigh. "The man had just such a nose and was of your inches. But in no other respect do you look like the Cromwellian who befriended me that night. You had no ringlets then. Your hair was cropped to a godly length, and. . . But you're the man. How odd to meet you again thus! How passing odd!" His grace seemed suddenly bemused. "They cannot err!" he muttered, continuing to regard the Colonel from under knitted brows, and his eyes were almost the eyes of a visionary. ”

“ When at last her chair was set down at the door of the Silver Angel, she stepped out and passed in upon a business over which no woman hurries.
It may be well that Master Bates—who had come slinking after that chair with three tough bullies following some distance behind him, and another three following at a still greater distance—was something of a judge of feminine nature, and so came to the conclusion that it would perhaps be best part of an hour before Miss Farquharson emerged again. He had dark, wicked little eyes that observed a deal, and very wicked wits that were keenly alert. ”

“ It is for the sins of her kind that the hand of the Lord is heavy upon us. It is for her and those like her that we are suffering and shall suffer until this city is cleansed of its iniquities."
He was alongside of the chair now, brandishing a short cudgel, and Miss Farquharson's scared eyes had a glimpse of his malevolent face. To her amazement she recognized it for the face that had peered at her two hours ago from the shadows of Betterton's house in Salisbury Square.
"You have seen one of yourselves smitten down with the plague under your very eyes," he was ranting. ”

“ They could not believe that the people would turn upon a popular idol at the bidding of this rusty black crow of a fanatic who came howling at their heels.
But those few rogues who had joined him were being reinforced by others who supported with inarticulate growls of menace the rascal's denunciations; and these grew fiercer at every moment.
"It is Sylvia Farquharson of the Duke's Playhouse," he cried. "A daughter of Belial, a shameless queen. ”

“ He had drawn his sword, and with the menace of this and of his voice, combined with his imperiously commanding mien, he clove himself a way through the press to the chair itself. After him, in plain striped liveries with broad fawn hats, came four stalwart lads, obviously lackeys with whips which they appeared nowise timid of employing. Their lashes fell vigorously upon the heads and shoulders of that black fanatic and those rough-looking knaves who more immediately supported his attack upon the chair. ”

“ It was said of him, and with truth, that he was the most impudent fellow in England, this lovely, accomplished, foolish son of a man whose face had made his fortune. Yet her raillery now put him out of countenance, and it was only with difficulty that he could master the fury it awoke in him. ”