3

Next day Laski was present at the action. An angel named Jubanladec appeared, and said he was appointed the Prince's "good governour or Angel," "the keeper and defender of this man present." He bade him "look to the steps of his youth, measure the length of his body, live better and see himself inwardly." Excellent advice, which might have been continued had not a man named Tanfield, attached to the Prince, arrived suddenly at Mortlake, with a message from the Court, and, contrary to all good manners, burst into the study. Laski had gone out another way through the oratory to meet him. The angel was annoyed, and prophesied rather unkindly that in five months the rash interrupter should be devoured by fishes of the sea. Was he drowned then or ever? Then the thread was resumed.

"What do ye seek after? Do ye hunt after the swiftness of the winds? Or are you imagining a form unto the coulds? Or go ye forth to hear the braying of an Asse, which passeth away with the swiftness of the air? Seek for true wisdom, for it beholdeth the highest and appeareth unto the lowest."

Then Laski's guardian angel becomes extremely practical and interesting: "Cecil hateth him [Laski] to the heart, and desireth he were gone hence. Many others do privily sting at him."

Dee endeavours to keep him to the point.

"For his return, what is your advice? Perhaps he wanteth necessary provision, and money."

"He shall be helpen, perhaps miraculously. Let him go so soon as he can conveniently."

"I say again, perhaps he wanteth money; but the Treasures of the Lord are not sent to them whom he favoureth."

"His help shall be strange. The Queen loveth him faithfully and hath fallen out with Cecil about him. Leicester flattereth him. His doings are looked into narrowly. But I alwayes inwardly direct him. I will minister such comfort to him as shall be necessary in the midst of all his doings."

Mingled with these sayings were some prophetical utterances about Laski overcoming the Saracens and Paynims with a bloody cross shown in his hand, and about Dee's passing to his country and aiding him to establish his kingdom. Then the familiar spirit sank through the table like a spark of fire, "seeming to make haste to his charge, I mean the Lord Laski."

On Wednesday, the 26th, Laski again being present, the good angel Il appeared with a besom in his hand. The Prince's pedigree was then barely begun, but on June 29 the clever little Madimi promised to finish the book exactly as Dee would have written it. It was no matter where the book was left, she told him, locked up or lying about. "Your locks are no hindrance to us."

"You have eased my heart of a thousand pound weight," ejaculated Dee, fervently. "Now I shall have leisure to follow my sute, and to do all Mr. Gilbert's businesse."

Madimi was much too learned a scholar for Kelly, who on this same day grew very angry with her for speaking to him in Greek, of which he knew nothing, not even the alphabet. As an alternative she gave him Arabic. "Unless you speak some language which I understand, I will expresse no more of this Gibberish," he said, rudely.