Here, said their compulsory host, he would leave them to prepare for supper, when they would do him the honour to join him in the eating-hall on their summons by the steward.
His departing bow was duly returned by Berenger, but no sooner did his steps die away on the stairs than the young man threw himself down on his bed, in a paroxysm of suffering both mental and bodily.
‘Berry, Berry, what is this? Speak to me. What does it all mean? cried Philip.
‘How can I tell?’ said Berenger, showing his face for a moment, covered with tears; ‘only that my only friend is dead, and some villainous trick has seized me, just—just as I might have found her. And I’ve been the death of my poor groom, and got you into the power of these vile dastards! Oh, would that I had come alone! Would that they had had the sense to aim direct!
‘Brother, brother, anything but this!’ cried Philip. ‘The rogues are not worth it. Sir Francis will have us out in no time, or know the reason why. I’d scorn to let them wring a tear from me.
‘I hope they never may, dear Phil, nor anything worse.
‘Now,’ continued Philip, ‘the way will be to go down to supper, since they will have it so, and sit and eat at one’s ease as if one cared for them no more than cat and dog. Hark! there’s the steward speaking to Guibert. Come, Berry, wash your face and come.
‘I—my head aches far too much, were there nothing else.
‘What! it is nothing but the sun,’ said Philip. ‘Put a bold face on it, man, and show them how little you heed.
‘How LITTLE I heed!’ bitterly repeated Berenger, turning his face away, utterly unnerved between disappointment, fatigue, and pain; and Philip at that moment had little mercy. Dismayed and vaguely terrified, yet too resolute in national pride to betray his own feelings, he gave vent to his vexation by impatience with a temperament more visibly sensitive than his own: ‘I never thought you so mere a Frenchman,’ he said contemptuously. ‘If you weep and wail so like a sick wench, they will soon have their will of you! I’d have let them kill me before they searched me.