“Don’t be a fool, Harry,” said Norton, irritably. “Come, lieutenant, I promised you this morning you should have such a chance of preaching a sermon as had never fallen to your lot before. But I see the pulpit will scarce serve my purpose, you shall come here.”
And gripping him by the shoulder he dragged him to the first pillar in the south aisle.
“Now for your cords, Harry,” he said, with a chuckle. “For this gentleman is of an independent turn, and must be reminded that traitors and prisoners do not roam at large. I must trouble you, Mr. Harford, to stand with your back to the pillar, and to stretch your arms back as far as they will go; hold him steady in that hollowed-out moulding, Harry, while I make these knots fast.”
With fiendish delight in giving pain he tied the cords so tightly that they cut into the victim’s wrists, then he fastened the ends at the farther side of the pillar, and taking a rope tied it with the same vicious tightness a little above his knees; lastly, to make movement impossible he girdled both the prisoner and the pillar with a leathern bridle.
So far Gabriel had borne all in silence, for his mind was still taken up with the thought of his friend, and of the brutal way in which the Major was being left to die. But he was naturally sensitive to all sarcasm and ridicule, and the gibes and jeers of the half-tipsy Lord Harry, and the more biting cruelties of the tongue to which Norton subjected him, were sharper than swords.
Norton, disappointed at his failure to rouse him, turned presently with a laugh to his companion:
“They say, you know, Harry, that these Puritans will neither swear nor game nor drink. But here you see one who is giving us rare sport, and who would pledge all that he has for a drink—even of water—after the march, and who longs to swear. No, no, my fine fellow, there you stand till to-morrow—we’ll have no sentiment over dying traitors. Your friend will soon be safe in hell.”
This allusion to the Major at last broke down Gabriel’s control.
“’Tis you that are already there!” he exclaimed, the blood boiling in his veins. “Only one led by the devil could thus treat a dying man.”
“Preach away, my friend, preach away!” said Norton, with a sneer. “Your fellow prisoners are asleep, and you can’t harm anyone. Come! ’tis not every day you can discourse in a church!”