He had been standing so passive as to lull his guards into a sense of false security, and the rigour of their hold on his arms had a little relaxed itself in consequence. He was as lithe and muscular as a young leopard. With a sudden leap and wrench he tore himself free and, before they could recover from their surprise, was bounding for the thread of light. He gained this small advantage, that in the dusk, and the confusion of the general rush to recapture him, he had time, before he was beset, to draw his sword; but he could do no more, since an obstacle he had not foreseen, in the shape of a short flight of steps leading to the curtains, baulked and brought him to bay. He laid one fellow’s cheek open with his blade; but he had no play in the crush for his sword arm, and could only shorten his weapon and stab ineffectively, as, feeling for the steps with his heels, he essayed to mount them backwards one by one. The noise was at its height—the scuffle of feet, the clash of steel, the calling of the officer to his men to take him alive o’ God’s name, and do him no hurt on peril of their heads—when the curtains at Brion’s back parted, letting in a faint gush of light, and with it the apparition of a white panic-struck face. The boy glanced round, saw the beast who had entrapped him, and, with a mighty effort and a cry of rage, leapt the remaining step and fell tooth and nail upon his enemy. The man went down under him with a yelp like a bitten dog’s, and lay writhing. But the end was come. Before the youngster could seize his blade into position, the whole party was upon him, and he was severed from his prey and set, torn and dishevelled on his feet, his sword wrested from him and his arms bound behind his back. And there he stood, panting and scornful, jeering at the pitiful figure of the other, as they set him too, shaking like a jelly, upright.
‘See the meal-faced pitcher-bawd,’ cried he, ‘how his valour fits with his profession!’
There was a stifled laugh or two, and the man, casting a fell venomous look about him, made a mute gesture to the others to follow, and went on himself before. The curtain had been torn aside in the fracas, revealing a narrow dim-lit passage down which the whole party made its way, the prisoner held secure in its midst. But Brion had no further thought to escape, and, breathed and defenceless as he was, allowed himself to be carried along unresisting.
Deep into the bowels of the building, like the passage tunnelled in a pyramid, ran the corridor, until at length it opened into a lofty stone hall, octagonal in shape, and having a peaked timbered roof with coats of arms emblazoned in its triangles, at whose apex an iron lantern, caging rather than releasing the little daylight which sought to enter and explore the glooms beneath, just enabled it to dilute their melancholy, and to reveal in each of the eight sections of the wall a heavy curtain hanging, denoting the presence of a room beyond.
Before one of these curtains the guard halted their prisoner, while the decoy, cringing and fulsome, parted the folds and vanished within. A muffled wrath of words followed, and presently the white face of the creature reappeared, and he whispered, his breath fluttering, in the Captain’s ear. That officer grunted, and gave an order to his men:—
‘Stand by till I call.’ He turned to Brion: ‘Now, young Sir’—and, taking him by one of his bound arms, led him into the room. The curtain closed behind them.
It was no great chamber—a spacious closet might describe it—but rich beyond the wont in its appointments. There was a Turkey carpet on the floor; another, inventoried by that name, on the table—‘of crimson velvet, richly embroidered with my Lord’s posie, bears and ragged staves of clothe of goulde and silver, garnished upon the seames and aboute with goulde lace, fringed accordinglie, and lyned with crimson taffeta sarsenett.’ And on it stood a flagon of hammered gold, from which, it seemed, my Lord had just drunk. The walls were panelled, and set in their darkness like a gem was a portrait of the Queen by Zucchero. From the ceiling hung a brazen candelabrum, with many branches. The chairs were upholstered in crimson velvet, and on one of them, drawn up before the hearth, on which a fire of sea-coal burned, sat the expected figure of him whom out of all the world Brion had most wished to avoid, yet whom, it seemed, in some fateful way, he was most destined to encounter. Yet, since it was his destiny, he set his neck stiffly to it, and faced his captor with a look of proud defiance.
The soldier, staying his convoy within some three yards distance of this brooding figure, put his heels together with a click and saluted. At the sound, my Lord brought his chair about, a little labouredly, and setting his hands on his thighs, looked hard and curiously into the face of the boy before him. Steady as a rock, Brion returned the gaze. ‘I will know him, now I see him,’ he thought.
He was in his fiftieth year, burly, short-necked and nearly bald. His complexion was colourless; his strong eyebrows, mustachio and full spade beard were as black, whether from nature or artifice, as black ink. He had a black velvet bonnet on his head, and the suit he wore might have been the dark-man’s livery. He looked a figure cut out of jet and ivory. Under the impassivity of his expression seemed to lurk a fierce and watchful arrogance, in the wings of his aquiline nose, in the pupils of his eyes, which were more often turned towards this ear or the other than set forthright in their sockets. Like a suspicious dog he appeared to listen with eyes and ears together, while his head was held as stiff as pride. His voice came hoarse and ruttish, rumbling in his throat, when he spoke at last:—
‘How now, boy! Are these your manners, being invited to my house to fall upon my servants and beat and maltreat them?’