“Mad,” snapped Sir Edward shortly.
The midmost sculler, without stopping pulling, put in his oar, so to speak:
“Let the ranter mouth, master, so he keeps his fists shut on his task and swings to ’t.”
“Not so mad, either,” retorted the giant. Continuing to pull with his left hand, he flung out his right towards the dark blot of the Tower shrinking behind them. “It fades, King,” he cried—“the symbol of thy sovereignty, the shambles sanctified by the blood of Freedom’s martyrs. Harrison, Coke, Peters, and the rest—remember them in the day of thy tribulation, since the Lord hath made of their servant and right hand the instrument of His retribution. They died to testify; but the instrument remains to extirpate. It shall be acclaimed and honoured henceforth in the temples of the Lord.”
The prospect seemed somehow to goad him to more furious exertions; the boat groaned under his strokes. A madman, no doubt, and best humoured and disregarded. He did not speak again, and in silence the journey was continued. Only an oppression as of death sat upon the heart of the King, and his eyes for ever sought behind the great rocking figure some sign of the dawn that his soul so desired and his interests so feared.
But they drove, unpursued and unmolested, down the starry flood; and presently the waters broadened and there blew a little sea-breeze among the scattered shipping. And suddenly Sir Edward Hales, intently alert, gave a sharp low order, and they ran under the counter of a small unobtrusive vessel lying at anchor in the midstream. There were white faces here looking over the bulwarks, and, down in the chains, hands ready to support the fugitives aboard. Then his Majesty, having mounted, and before he turned to withdraw, bade Sir Edward reward his boatmen with a liberal vail, which duty the knight performed. But, even as he received his tribute, and the boat drifted away, the hoary giant rose in his place and cast the money into the water.
“I am paid a thousandfold,” he roared, “in the extirpation of thy race.”
The King, with a ghastly face, leaned forward.
“In God’s name, who are you?” he cried.
The answer came back, mad and jubilant, across the widening interval: