“Verily,” muttered the Nevile, approaching very slowly, “I knew what would happen; but to lay hands on my host, an’ he were fifty times a wizard—No! My liege,” he said in a firm tone, but falling on his knee, and his gallant countenance pale with generous terror, “my liege, forgive me. This man succoured me when struck down and wounded by a Lancastrian ruffian; this man gave me shelter, food, and healing. Command me not, O gracious my lord, to aid in taking the life of one to whom I owe my own.”
“His life!” exclaimed the Duchess of Bedford,—“the life of this most illustrious person! Sire, you do not dream it!”
“Heh! by the saints, what now?” cried the king, whose choler, though fierce and ruthless, was as short-lived as the passions of the indolent usually are, and whom the earnest interposition of his mother-in-law much surprised and diverted. “If, fair belle-mere, thou thinkest it so illustrious a deed to frighten us out of our mortal senses, and narrowly to ‘scape sending us across the river like a bevy of balls from a bombard, there is no disputing of tastes. Rise up, Master Nevile, we esteem thee not less for thy boldness; ever be the host and the benefactor revered by English gentlemen and Christian youth. Master Warner may go free.”
Here Warner uttered so deep and hollow a groan, that it startled all present.
“Twenty-five years of labour, and not to have seen this!” he ejaculated. “Twenty and five years, and all wasted! How repair this disaster? O fatal day!”
“What says he? What means he?” said Jacquetta.
“Come home!—home!” said Marmaduke, approaching the philosopher, in great alarm lest he should once more jeopardize his life. But Adam, shaking him off, began eagerly, and with tremulous hands, to examine the machine, and not perceiving any mode by which to guard in future against a danger that he saw at once would, if not removed, render his invention useless, tottered to a chair and covered his face with his hands.
“He seemeth mightily grieved that our bones are still whole!” muttered Edward. “And why, belle-mere mine, wouldst thou protect this pleasant tregetour?”
“What!” said the duchess, “see you not that a man capable of such devices must be of doughty service against our foes?”
“Not I. How?”