"Hush!" he said gently, thinking me, I suppose, as indeed I was, at
the point of calling aloud on the guard. "I am unarmed, and would
not hurt you if I could. What is your name?" And his voice, for all
that it was young and sweet, sounded like my father's, for which
there was reason enough, as I was soon to know.
"My name is Drayton," I answered simply.
"And the other?" he asked.
"Phil--Philip," I answered; and then I leapt to my feet as one waking
from a dream, saying, as I did so, "though, sooth, I know not why I
tell you." With my moving he so changed his position that the glow
of the fire fell upon his face, and I knew him for the priest that
had been taken in the orchard.
"Nor I," he said sternly, "for it is false. I am Philip Drayton."
"What, what!" I cried, in much amazement. "And is Sir Michael your
father?"
"Sir Michael is my father," he replied.
"And mine also," said I, very joyfully, with yet no thought of the
terrible meaning of his presence. "I took but little from my name.
Lay the falsehood on my clothes. Brother Philip, I am Philippa."
He seemed less pleased with the encounter than dismayed by my attire.
"My sister!" he said; "my sister in this guise!"
"Nay, trust me," I said merrily, "none knows me for a maid."
And then he seemed to remember something, and, laying both hands on
my shoulders, he held me off from him so that the light of the fire
fell upon my face.
"My little sister!" said he. "I saw you, then, in the orchard. And
was it you that saved the life of the Stadtholder of Holland?"
"So they say," I replied, doubtfully, wondering at the joy I saw upon
his countenance.
"I am glad of it," he said, "right glad of it, indeed." And with
that he heaved a great sigh of relief.
"Glad!" I cried. "Glad, you say! How can that be, when you yourself
were one of those that would have slain him?"
"With them indeed I was," he said; "but I had no part in the planning
that foul plot, and took none in its attempted execution. Had I even
known the wickedness that was toward, I would not have obeyed what I
deemed of all earthly commands the most terrible. By the happiest
stroke of chance they did move my lodging to the chamber where is the
sliding panel that gives upon the stair by which I have now reached
you. Old Mr. Nathaniel Royston did show it me when I was but a
little lad and you unborn. But he brought me no further than this
chamber. I do remember," my brother continued, with a note in his
voice that seemed to mark the man's sadness to recall a merry
childhood, "I do remember that he said, with his kindly chuckle, he
must not show the rest of the secret to one that like enough would
some day prove a Jesuit in disguise. Though he spoke in jest, he was
a good prophet. And now, child," he said, with rapid change to a
manner more urgent, "you must show me what he would not."
"If you mean the secret way from the house," said I, "I do not know
it; nor I would not show it if I did. I am here on guard duty till
Captain Royston return."
"Sister," said Philip, speaking with voice and words so solemn that
heart and ear were enchained till he came to an end,--"Sister, King
James and his cause are dear to me. Holy Mother Church and her cause
are yet more dear. But dearest of all (God forgive me!), dearest of
all to me now, little sister Phil, is our dear father's honor and the
honor of his house. It is no shame to him or to the Drayton name
that I should work or fight for King James; none if I should spend my
life to bring the dear land back to the true faith. But what one of
us will hold up his head again if the name must be made foul, and
stink in the nostrils of men, for a base plot of treachery and
assassination? Therefore, child of my father, for the name's sake,
let me go."
With that he made to pass me and reach the door into the gallery, but
I stepped between and took him by the arms.
"Do not move," I said; "not one step, lest I call on the guard." And
he stood like a statue of stone, while for a few moments, stretched
by the gravity and tension of my thought into the seeming of hours, I
was silent, and then: "Philip," I said, "if you are innocent of this
wicked thing, why are you in England?" And in a few words he told me
of the mission on which he was come. Then said I: "Will you now give
it up--this mission--and return at once into France, if I let you
go?" And, seeing that he shook his head, "Come," I said; "be quick.
It is that or naught. Swear it, and you may go for me. The Captain
will be upon us soon, and then it will be too late."
"Yes," he answered.
"It is an oath--a Drayton's oath?" I asked. "It is," said Philip.
"Then go, in God's name!" I cried. "Though, faith, I know not the
secret passage, and I do not see how otherwise you should pass all
the guards."
"I can but try," he answered; and again would have moved to the door,
but in that moment I heard a footfall; and, being more sure from whom
it came than whence, I bade Philip keep still, and ran as light as my
heavy boots would allow to the door, drew it a little back, and
peered into the passage. Mightily eased in mind by what I saw, which
was little enough, being but the back of the sentry disappearing
round the corner of the gallery, I softly pushed-to the door,
whispering ere I turned: "Quick! quick! Go now. 'T is your one
chance. Thank God it was not Captain Royston; and the sentry is for
the moment out of hearing."
And uttering the last words I turned to find myself face to face with
the man for whose absence I had just given thanks to God. He was
looking at me over the table where he had just set down his
candlestick beside the meat and wine he had fetched for me. And of
all the terrible things of that night, none, I think, did send to my
heart a pang so sharp as the sight of that flagon of wine and wooden
platter of cold venison; verily, for a moment I felt, with his
reproachful eye upon me, that I was indeed that base thing he could
not choose but think me.
"Thank Him not too soon, thou devil's whelp!" he said.
Philip yet stood where I had left him. To him I went quickly and
whispered: "Go, while you may. I will engage him. He will not hurt
me, for, if needs must, I will tell him who I am." Then, going over
to Captain Royston with strut and swagger much belying the trembling
that was within me: "Sir," I said, laying hand to my sword, "you give
me an ill name."
"Less ill than your deeds," he answered with great bitterness. "I
went but to get you meat and drink, and, returning, thought of that
secret way from the room above. I stepped over the sleeping sentry,
unbolted the door and closed it softly behind me, only to find the
bird flown. As I drew back the panel he had closed behind him and
followed him down the stair, greatly fearing some mischance from his
evasion, naught I imagined was so bad as the finding you together
planning his escape. Was it for this I did cherish you, little
viper?"
To all which, though his words did cut me to the heart, I but replied
that I was no reptile, and that therefore he lied, hoping by such
naughty words to provoke him to quarrel with me, while Philip was
about escaping, purposing thereafter to tell him the truth, when that
was accomplished for which I would not have him even in his own
conscience held responsible. Me they could not very heavily punish,
since from His Highness of Orange I took no pay, nor had sworn to him
any oath. Nor was I altogether hopeless of persuading Ned to conceal
his knowledge of what it would then be too late to prevent.
"Let me pass, boy," he cried, "or I will whip you soundly with my
belt." But when he would have put me aside, as I stood between them,
I held him fast to the utmost of my strength. Finding I would still
cling to him, he put his hand to the buckle of his belt.
"Whip, then," I said, "for the man shall go free." And, though my
flesh did most prophetically shudder beneath the imminent stripes, I
thought that here was no bad way of gaining time for Philip, when I
should come to weep, in Philippa's proper person, for the pain of
that whipping. But he flung me off, muttering a plague on the
Drayton countenance of me, and that the priest would make off if he
did not seize him.
"He shall!" I cried, half drawing my sword. "What! Art afraid to
draw on a lesser than thy hulking self?"
"False and ingrate though you are, I would not hurt you," he said;
"and I will not call upon the guard; but I will have him again secure
in his chamber, and so shield you, little devil, from all punishment
but what I will myself administer when all is done."
And as he advanced upon me and would have seized me, I lifted my
cloak that was on the back of the settle and flung it over his head,
where, for a brief space, despite his struggles, I held it. And
while his eyes were thus blinded for a moment, Philip, swift and
silent, slipped past us and through the door of the stair to the
Prince's chamber. Royston, however, soon flung me off and tore the
cloak from his head. And I saw at length great anger in his face,
and with a last essay at strategy did leap to the door that gives
upon the gallery, as if indeed I defended Philip's retreat; and
there, with drawn sword and taunting words, I defied him. And then
he came, and our swords met. And finding, as well I had known I
should find, that he was too strong for me, I was, after a pass or
two, at the point of calling him by the old name and of telling mine,
when he did something that had formed no part of the teaching he had
given me with the foils, so that I found myself speedily at his
mercy, and felt the sharp, cold prick of steel low down upon my neck.
And then I thought my end was indeed come, and I tried to murmur:
"Spare me, dear Ned," but could not.
Now all these things--from Ned's return to my foolish fainting at the
first blood--that have in the telling taken so long did happen so
quickly that perhaps seconds rather than minutes were their proper
measure. And my enemy has since told me that what I have called my
swooning seemed but the closing for a few moments of my eyes. But,
however that may be, I do think it endured sufficiently for his great
concern. For when I opened them I knew not at all where I should be
until the white solicitude of his face bending close over brought me
very soon to the consciousness of the strong and tender arms that
held me. So, seeing I was come to myself, he led me towards the
hearth, and set me in a chair. And then I began to feel a little
smarting and a warmth of trickling blood. Taking my handkerchief, I
thrust it beneath waistcoat and shirt, and pressed it upon the spot
that did so smart, whence withdrawing it and seeing the blood upon
it, I shuddered.
"Nay, nay," said Ned, while the lines of anxiety upon his face belied
the little laugh he forced from his lips, "fret not for a little
blood. I thrust not hard. Wherefore did you anger me, monkey?
Come," he added, laying his hand to the breast of my shirt and
fingering the buttons with that awkwardness that a man has ever for
garments that are not his, "I will heal it."
"No," I said, pulling away his hands, "you must not."
"But I would see the hurt, lad," he said. "I know not why, but I am
sorry I have hurt you. God knows, I have killed men and thought
little of it, but this scratch to a child does mightily vex me." And
again he would have loosed the buttons. "Come, open your shirt," he
said.
"I say I will not. I am not the lad you think me, sir."
But even then he did not understand, but took my two hands in one of
his, so great and strong that mine might scarce writhe themselves
about within it, while he set himself to do what I would not for all
his asking. And so it was that I came to the last line of my
defences. "Let be, dear Ned," I murmured, in that tone of pleading I
had ever in the old days used when his will did offer to prove the
stronger. "Let be, dear; 't is--'t is thy little maid, Phil," I
said, and dropped my eyes before him, and let my prisoned hands lie
still.
He stared upon me in an astonishment of wonder that discovered the
white all round his eyes, and at first he would not believe.
"Nay, nay," he said, "it is not so!" And I lifted my eyes and so
looked into his that he could no longer doubt.
"Verily, Ned, it is I. And I had told the sooner," I said, "but
that--but that--" and, my words then failing, I again dropped my gaze
before his.
"Phil!" he cried. "Is it even my little friend Phil? 'But,' you
say--but what?"
"But that I would not tell you--and could not--was ashamed, Ned, and
did mightily desire to know had you forgot me." And here, laying my
folded handkerchief to my wound inside my shirt, and fastening all
close above it, I did see his face so lose color at thought of the
hurt he had given me, that I laid my hand upon his, saying: "Be not
vexed, sweet Ned, 't is but a scratch."
"I am right glad of it, Phil," he answered, "if it be so. But indeed
you should not run about in this guise. How came you to be so
dressed?"
"That story must wait," I replied merrily. "But 't is the first
time, Ned, and shall be the last."
"And if you must needs be a man," he went on, "but for a day, you
should cleave like a man to one side, and not be so greedy of strife
as to draw sword on both. There will be trouble over this priest
when he is taken, as he will be, by the guard without."
"Listen, Ned," said I. "That priest is my brother."
"What!" he cried. "Surely it is not Philip!"
"Philip it is," said I, "and no other, though I did not know him
until he told me even now in this room. And also he did tell me,
Ned, that he had no part in the assault upon His Highness."
"So much," said Ned, "is true. I marked him."
"He told me, moreover," I continued, "that the business that brought
him to England was fair and honest, though it was for King James.
There was another priest did force or trick him into companying with
the murderers. Ned, dear Ned, I did mean letting him go for our
father's sake and our name." And here I found no power, and perhaps
little will, to restrain the catch of a sob in my throat. "Men must
not say 'spy,' 'plotmonger,' 'assassin,' when they say Drayton, Ned.
You do forgive me?"
"Right gladly," he answered, and seemed to muse for a little. And
then, "'T is well," he said, "that I did not wake the sentry that lay
sleeping at his door."
"Why did you not?" I asked.
"Because," he replied, "though I thought all was safe, I would not
have it known that I had left my post." With that he went softly to
the door of the gallery and listened. "It is strange," he said, when
he was come again to my side, "that I hear no sound of his capture.
Yet he could not pass the sentry at the stair-head."
"He did not go that way," said I.
"But it was to defend that door," he retorted, "that you drew on me."
"Ay, dear Ned," I answered, "but that was to deceive you."
"But why, cunning one," he said, "did you not at once tell me all?"
"I feared you would be mighty stern," I answered; "also, I was loath
to tell you who I was. Moreover, Ned, I did think it best for you to
have neither knowledge nor share in his escape, if I might procure it
without your aid. I was afraid for you."
"And yet not afraid of your life?" he asked.
"Nay, that too. But I thought," I replied ruefully, "that I had
enough cunning of fence to keep you off for a while; for I did often
use to hold my own with the foils against you. In extremity I was to
cry: ''T is I, Ned! kill me not!' But you were so fierce and
strong." Whereat he laughed a little, sheathing his own sword and
handing me mine.
"These are not foils," he said. "But, if your brother went not by
the gallery, where then? Is he returned to the chamber above?" And
he pointed to the gaping mouth of the secret stair.
And right upon his words Philip entered the chamber from the Prince's
stairway, and, closing the door behind him: "I am here, Royston," he
said.
Royston heard, and, turning, grasped him by the hand. "Ah! so it was
there you did hide, old friend," he said. "Faith, they did spoil a
good man of his hands when they made you priest." And then I saw
Ned's eyes travel to the door just closed; and he dropped Philip's
hand, and his face blanched. "In the name of God!" he cried, "what
did you up there? Say that you were not in the Prince's chamber!"
And for the first time and the last I saw Edward Royston shaken by a
passion of fear.
"It is from his chamber that I come," said Philip, speaking and
bearing himself with great serenity.
Poor Ned caught his breath with a sound sharp and hissing. "Then, as
there is a God above us," he whispered, "if any harm has happened, I
will slay you and the maid your sister, though I do love her, only
before I kill myself."
"Go," said the priest, pointing to the stair, "look on your Prince as
he sleeps."
"Yes, I will go," replied Ned, flushing a little with hope born of
Philip's calm. "But I will not leave you free."
I caught his great horseman's pistol from the table where Ned had
laid it after escorting His Highness to his chamber.
"Go up, Ned," said I; and to Philip, as I pointed to a chair, "Sit
there, brother." And to Ned again: "If he but rise from his chair
before you return, I will shoot him, as surely as you shall kill me
after him. Is it primed?" I asked, for the pistol was of the pattern
then coming into use, discharged by means of a falling flint. And
he, taking it from my hand, and raising the dog, and peering into the
pan for the priming, I added: "But he will not move, for he has done
no wrong."
He put the weapon in my hand. "You will not fail me?" he asked, with
a countenance very awful to see. For answer I looked once in his
face. He turned and went swiftly through the little door and up the
stair.
Philip, as I think, knew it was no vain threat that I had made. But
I, believing his conscience clean, had little doubt of a willing
captive.
The time passed unbroken with a word; hours it could not be, but
whether minutes or seconds I do not know. And somewhere in the heart
of my confidence there throbbed a little pricking pain of doubt.
For, brother as he was, to me the man was yet a stranger. What if he
were of those with whom all means are held lawful to the cherished
end? Had not I, but an ignorant girl, done for one end what I had
held base indeed for another? And for answer I clung to the stock of
my weapon, and swore he should die if His Highness had suffered. For
not only Drayton, but Royston honor also lay in the hollow of my
hand. But I swore, too, that I would not long survive him; and, if
Ned would do it, even death would not be wholly without sweetness.
At last a step was on the stair, and my eyes went again to the little
door. And, when I saw his returning face, I laughed aloud.
"You may well laugh, Mistress Philippa," he said, sheathing the sword
that had not, I suppose, left his hand since it had leapt from the
scabbard on his first doubt of Philip, "for I was indeed a fool to
doubt him." Then, turning to Philip: "I did you wrong, Drayton," he
said; "the blame must lie on the evil company we did find you in."
"I should myself, I fear, doubt any man in such case," answered
Philip.
With that they fell to considering what should be done. Philip was
at first for returning to his chamber above. But Ned had already
taken his resolution. Sir Michael, he said, should not, in the sweet
evening of a life of honor, see his house come to shame. "You
cannot, I do suppose," he continued, "bring proof or witness of your
innocence in the matter?"
"He that alone could clear me," replied my brother, "is escaped.
Moreover, I do not think he bears me any good-will."
"Then you must go," declared Royston, in accents very positive.
And I could not find it in me, for all the risk to him, to say him
nay. So without more ado Ned went to the hearth, where, by means I
did not till long after understand, he very quickly closed the
opening in the wall whence Philip had entered. He next caused to
appear, on the opposite side of the fire, a passage that was the
counterpart of the first. He then returned to the table, and,
pouring out wine from the flagon he had brought for me: "Drink," he
said to Philip, "and listen. There is little time to spare, for the
officer of the watch will soon go again upon his round. You found
but half the secret. There," he said, pointing to the grim aperture
in the wall of the hearth, of which the dancing light of the flames
served but to mark the deeper gloom, "there is the other half.
Descend these stairs and follow the gallery. You cannot miss the
way. It will take you out among the rocks below the bridge. Thence
follow the stream until you are come to the old mill, whence you may
with ease reach the highroad."
"From the mill," answered Philip, "I shall know my way. God bless
you, Royston! It is for the old man's sake."
He grasped Ned's hand, laid his own upon my head as if in
benediction, and would have left us.
"There is one word more to say," said Royston; and Philip turned on
the edge of the hearth to hear it. "I cannot let you go," continued
the man who would not take the smallest risk of harming his master
even in the moment when he was going open-eyed into the danger of
branding as a traitor, "I cannot let you go to do further hurt, how
honest and open soever, to the cause I serve."
"As I gave it to my sister but now," answered Philip, "you have my
promise to do nothing for the King, nor against him of Orange, until
I have set foot in France."
"It will serve," replied Ned. "But--" he added, and then paused, as
if with a hesitation of delicacy.
"What? Another doubt?" cried Philip, with a laugh.
"They say--with what truth I do not know," continued Ned,--"but said
it is, that those of your order have strange quirks and quibbles to
ease the conscience of oaths and other matters."
"Ah!" said Philip. "On what, then, or by what, shall I swear to you?"
"Swear me no oath," answered Royston. "Give me your hand and your
word as a gentleman of England to abide by the spirit of your
promise."
So Philip gave him his hand and a straight look in the eyes.
"You have it, lad," he said, in convincing accents of simple truth,
and so left us, disappearing into the dark chasm of the wall.
Now Ned had but just closed behind his retreat the door of stone (by
that means which I now know, but will not here set down; for who can
tell if political trouble be even yet forever at an end in England?)
when there came a hand upon the door. Ned dropped into a seat,
muttering: "But just in time!" while I, feigning sleep, stretched
myself in my corner of the settle.
"Is all well, Captain?" asked the cheery voice of M. de Rondiniacque,
as he entered from the gallery.
"All is well, Lieutenant," replied Royston, with a very fine
assumption of carelessness. And then the officer of the watch drew
near, looking down upon me, as I suppose (for my eyes were fast
closed), with curiosity.
"_Ma foi!_" he cried, "the peevish youth leaves you not, Captain. He
is mighty pale in the face for one that sleeps."
"He is little used, I think, to fatigue," replied Ned. "Is all well
without, Lieutenant?"
"_Mon capitaine_," said De Rondiniacque, "not a mouse stirs." And so
saluted and retired as he had come.
When the sound of his feet had died away,
"Thank Heaven!" I whispered, "the danger is past!"
"For your brother, yes," Ned answered softly. "For us it is to come."
"Nay, indeed, I hope not so," said I. "And for him, how shall I
thank you, Captain Royston?"
"Dear child," he said, with a flash of eagerness lighting his eyes,
"do not call me captain. Were I not like ere long to be a man
disgraced, I could ask you for thanks, but----"
And I, who had ever wholly trusted him and desired nothing so much as
that he should ask in payment what had long been his, made no parley
with modesty, but at once replied: "Nay, but ask, dear Ned; do but
ask. You will never in my eyes be disgraced."
But when he began to reply that it was a great thing he would ask, of
which the granting would bear the balance well down on the other
side, Dame Fate played the careful _dueña_ to the poor maid that
thought herself in hands safe enough without any such protection.
I mean that before Ned was well launched in that tale of what he
would have of me, the door at the winding stair's foot did again
open; and, of all the many times these divers doors had in the last
few hours moved upon their hinges, this was the worst opening; for,
wrapped in a great black cloak thrown hurriedly around him, there
came His Highness of Orange. And, but that I knew none other could
then come that road, I do not think I should have known him for the
man that had of late bid me so kindly good-night. For over his face
was a cloud of anger very awful to see.
We sprang to our feet, and Captain Royston saluted. Passing this
military courtesy unacknowledged, the Prince at once addressed him in
a voice so harsh and with a manner so cruel (as it seemed to me) that
I fell into a great fear and assurance that he had by some means
discovered both too much and too little; and my heart seemed to melt
to water within me, so that I despaired of ever setting my lover
right in the eyes of his Prince.
"You watch well over my slumbers, Captain," was indeed all he said;
but voice and countenance were more than words, and I felt as I have
said.
"It has been my endeavor, Your Highness," answered Royston, with much
dignity, and a face the color of ashes.
"A good watch: a mighty careful and anxious watch, Captain!" the
Prince continued. "I do not always sleep, Captain Royston, when my
eyes seem closed, and I truly believe your care lacked little of
prolonging my rest to the awful Day of Judgment."
"I do not understand Your Highness's words," said Royston.
The Prince crossed the room to the outer door, and, with his hand
upon it: "I shall presently explain them," he said, and so went out
into the gallery.
"Ned," I cried, so soon as he was gone, "I will tell him all!"
"That you shall not," he replied.
"How much does he know?" I asked, trembling as I spoke.
"I cannot tell," answered Ned. "But to tell him all in this mood
will but harm you and yours; perhaps lead to Philip's capture, and
yet do me no service. He will never pass over this one thing,--that
I did let your brother go. And he will know that soon enough,
telling or none."
And here the door opening again, we were perforce silent. I could
hear His Highness's last few words to the sentry, spoken in a tongue
I took to be Dutch, because I did not understand it, but, among them
occurring the names Schomberg, Bentinck, De Rondiniacque, I guessed
he had summoned those gentlemen to attend him. Then His Highness
returned into the chamber, and for a while we stood silent, regarding
one another as the footsteps of the sentry died away down the gallery.
At last Royston would have spoken. "Your Highness--" he began.
But the Prince interrupted him. "Be silent," he said, "and wait."
So in silence we waited, but how long I do not know. At length came
M. de Rondiniacque, to be soon followed by Count Schomberg and Mr.
Bentinck. These two had, it appeared, resumed their clothes in
haste, and concealed the disorder of their attire each in long
horse-cloaks, even as His Highness had done. And in these three
stern figures of Prince, soldier, and statesman, close wrapped to the
chin in dark and twisted folds of cloth, there was, I thought, an
awful likeness to the bench of judges that sat in Hades.
When the last had entered, the Prince thus addressed the three: "It
seems, gentlemen, that in the master of this house I have an enemy."
At which point Mr. Bentinck, without at all staying the flow of the
Prince's words, ejaculated a deep and guttural "Ah!" as one finding
but what he had looked for.
"I therefore purpose, gentlemen, to question Captain Royston in your
presence, and thereafter to take your censures in the matter of
bringing him to fitting military trial for treason."
"I am no traitor to Your Highness, nor to any man," cried Royston,
with blunt indignation.
"That we shall soon see, I believe," said His Highness. "Did you not
appoint yourself this night, with my consent, the innermost guard of
my person?"
"I did," answered Royston.
"Then where is the prisoner; he that called himself priest?" asked
the Prince, turning on him a gaze that called to my mind tales I had
read of the Inquisitors of Spain, so piercing and ruthless was it.
"He is escaped!" replied poor Ned.
"By your aid?" asked the Inquisitor.
"By my aid," replied the accused.
"He was here in converse with you?"
"He was."
"By what means did he avoid the guard?"
"That," said Royston, "I will not tell." And his eyes flashed, and
his head, never humbled, rose yet more erect; and I knew he was glad
he could now use boldness where he saw he was to expect no mercy.
And, of the three men that were listening to these questions and
answers, one said: "Oh!" another "Ah!" while the third drew in his
breath with a sound of hissing.
"I see, gentlemen," said William, "that you mark him." Then, to
Royston: "To what end did you aid his flight? Will you at least tell
me that?"
"Nor that neither," said he boldly, yet without insolence.
"The priest," said His Highness, "did enter my chamber while he
thought I slept."
"'T is like enough that he did," replied Royston.
"And afterwards you also," said the Prince, "with naked sword."
"I did," said Royston, "but to no end but to be assured of Your
Highness's safety."
Now when Captain Royston had first declared the escape of the priest,
I had marked M. de Rondiniacque step for a moment into the gallery,
whence he soon returned. It appears that he had in that moment's
absence despatched one of the three soldiers that were on duty
without the door to the room on the floor above, whence that escape
had been effected. This man now rapping upon the door, M. de
Rondiniacque opened to him, heard his report, and returned to his
place beside Marshal Schomberg. His Highness observing these
movements, and enquiring what was to do, M. de Rondiniacque replied
that it was even as Captain Royston had said, the priest's door being
unfastened and his chamber empty.
His Highness acknowledged the news with a brief gesture, and
continued: "Do I then, gentlemen, greatly err to suppose that this
house has been a snare to us? Do not the events of this night give a
dreadful significance to those of the afternoon?"
"It is plainly so," said Count Schomberg.
"Your Highness," growled Mr. Bentinck, "knows well my opinion, from
the warnings I have already given him."
As it appeared now M. de Rondiniacque's turn to add his voice to this
concert of his superiors, while yet no sound came from him, the
Prince turned upon him a keen glance of enquiry.
"I must agree, Monseigneur," he said, with a very lively distress
appearing in his countenance, "unless, indeed, there be some reason
behind it all, which Captain Royston may now disclose. I have always
found him a gentleman of the nicest honor," he continued, gathering
courage, "and I observe that there is against him no proof but what
his own word has afforded. None saw the unfastening of the door,
none saw the man's escape: it were more after the fashion of the
vulgar traitor to deny all, and to ascribe his appearance in Your
Highness's chamber--" and here the good Frenchman checked his speech.
"To what, sir?" demanded the Prince, the gloom of anger growing, I
thought, yet deeper upon his face.
"To the disordered fancy of an uneasy sleeper," replied De
Rondiniacque fearlessly.
"Your advocacy carries you too far, Lieutenant," said His Highness,
in tones that I feared must at once silence our only friend.
"Your Highness will pardon me if I point out that I make no defence
for Captain Royston," insisted De Rondiniacque, stepping a little
forward with a graceful ease and a frank glance in His Highness's
face that I think had taken by storm any woman's heart less strongly
garrisoned than the only one in reach. "I but point out the
traitor's refuge, of which he has made no use. If I err in saying as
much, I will beg Your Highness to remember that the accused gentleman
has been my friend and comrade." With which words he saluted and
retired to his former position. And I think that what he had said
and the way he bore himself were not wholly without effect upon the
Prince: for he turned to Captain Royston, and asked him, with some
slight approach to gentleness, had he any explanation to offer.
"I can but assure Your Highness," said Captain Royston, "that
throughout I have done nothing adverse to Your Highness's great
cause, nor to his person, nor to the honor and faith I do hold them
in."
"And is this all?" asked William.
"Before these gentlemen, sir," he replied, "it is all. But I hold
the true fulness of the matter ever ready for your private ear."
"My private ear, sir," answered the Prince, "is like to be much
abused if I give my closet for every traitor's subtile excuses."
"I offer none," said Royston, with the rigid pride of despair.
"And none," said His Highness, "save in this company, will I hear.
Keep your tale, sir, for to-morrow's court-martial. You are under
arrest. Your sword, Captain Royston. Lieutenant de Rondiniacque,
see to it that this one at least do not escape." And then, as poor
Ned slowly drew his sword, and tendered the hilt to the Prince, His
Highness, waving it aside, signified to M. de Rondiniacque by a
gesture that he should take it.
"'T is not such," he said, "that I have need of."
Which bitter speech came near to breaking down the restraint in which
the man had held himself. I saw the blood fly to his face, the
half-step forward, the hands clenched by his sides; I heard the one
dread word on his lips. "God--!" he gasped, and again curbed himself.
"No words of heat, sir!" said the Prince. "I did once take you for
my friend. Is mine the fault that you prove an enemy? Weigh well
what defence you will make to-morrow; let me warn you that
courts-martial in time of war are swift in procedure and deadly in
sentence. Should such court hear from your lips no more than we have
now heard, make your peace with God." And with that he would have
left the room; but I, beside myself with terror, caught him by the
arm, and tried to speak.
The Prince, however, shook me off, bidding me roughly not to court
his notice; saying that this was not a court of justice nor of favor,
but a camp; and that I was happy not to come within the purview of
its jurisdiction.
But I found my tongue, and said: "Your Highness must in courtesy hear
me."
On which, with little enough, he bade me speak.
"I do solemnly swear," said I, "before the God that shall judge us
all----"
"Beware, young man," interrupted His Highness, "lest you take that
awful name in vain."
"The more awful, great, and holy," I replied, "the readier my will to
take it now. And even so I swear that Captain Royston is no traitor.
What he has done, I have done. I will tell Your Highness all."
"Be silent," said Ned. "I do forbid it. You harm my case."
"Nay, then," I replied, "I will not. But it is even as I say."
The Prince looked in my face, and I thought that his did a little
soften. "I would I believed you, boy," he said, in gentler tones.
"But I do not believe."
And with that a great hope sprang into my mind, and--"Some day you
must believe," I cried. "But now I will ask no more than Your
Highness has already granted." And I drew forth from its sheath the
sword His Highness had given me.
"What is your meaning?" asked the Prince sternly, the frown coming
dark again across his face.
"They say that I came between Your Highness and great danger," I
replied, with an inward prayer for the courage and the skill of words
that I so sorely needed, "in recompense of which you have given me
this sword. According to the word that was given with it, I now
render it again," and here I knelt before him, holding out the weapon
by the blade, the handle toward the Prince, "praying that my friend,
Edward Royston, Captain in Your Highness's Swedish Regiment of Horse,
may stand in rank, duties, and honor, as he stood before this matter
did arise. And I ask, moreover, that, when there shall be an end of
the present troubles, Your Highness will bring him to fitting
examination and judgment, to the end that his virtue may appear to
all men."
"'T is a request of many heads and much length," said the Prince,
with a smile of much sarcasm.
"Indeed, it has but one head," I replied. "I pray Your Highness to
suspend his case till the war be done. Is it granted?"
"No," said the Prince; "it is not granted, and it shall not be."
"And wherefore not?" I demanded, with a boldness that does at this
present vastly astonish me to think on.
"I gave the sword, with its pledge," he replied, "to one I thought
loyal to my person and a friend to my cause, the liberties of
England. I am not, and may never be, a king; and I have not
learned," he said, with irony very cynical, "to grant favor to
traitors."
"But you are a great Prince," I persisted; "a Prince, I have heard
tell, that never departs from his plighted word. This pledge I hold
until it be redeemed. Again I entreat Your Highness to return to
Captain Royston his sword."
"Give me that in your hand," he said, after a moment's thought, which
had taken him, with a few pondering paces, to some distance from the
spot where I yet knelt. But as I rose to bring it to him, I believe
he read in my face the joy that I felt within, for, raising his hand
with a gesture that at once checked my advance--"Nay," he said, "I
will not give him back the sword he has dishonored. But, for my
word's sake, he has his life and liberty. Let him begone. And if he
cross my path again, to raise his hand by never so little against me
or mine; if he be found after this night ever within my lines, he
dies--as spies die, _Master_ Royston," he added, turning upon him a
glance of keen contempt. Then, after a little pause, he said, with
great solemnity, "May the life I give serve unto repentance."
In that moment I think poor Ned's heart was very near breaking. In a
voice slow and measured from the restraint he used, he said that he
would not accept his life at such a price. His Highness, replying
that the choice did not lie with him, turned sharply to me and said:
"Give me the sword."
And then the sight of the stricken man's white and ghastly
face--stricken for his faith to me and my people--inspired my heart
to the most audacious act of my life. I took the sword by the hilt,
and, pressing hard upon it with both hands, bent down the lower part
until a portion lay upon the floor. On this setting my foot with all
my body's weight to back it, I wrenched the hilt over toward the
point, so that the blade broke some seven inches from the end. M. de
Rondiniacque, stepping forward to arrest my purpose, was too late. I
waved him back with a gesture I took to be mighty full of
haughtiness, and, standing firm upon the fragment, I presented the
hilt to His Highness of Orange. On the snapping of the blade the
Prince had started in anger; as I handed him the truncated weapon, he
drew back and--"What is this?" he cried.
"Your Highness grants no more than half my prayer," I replied. "I
render half the pledge."
"The greater half," he said, and in despite of himself he smiled.
Being by that smile much emboldened, I answered: "Then I am more
generous than William, Prince of Orange. For life," I said, lifting
from the floor the broken point of the sword, "is less than honor.
Yet, like His Highness, I keep the point that kills."