The Speaker continued to smile at him. “You are not yourself to-night, Jeremy,” he chided gently. “You are overwrought; and it is not to be wondered at. You will find your next triumph less exciting.”
But Jeremy’s agitation only increased. It was not only his own future that was at stake, but the Lady Eva’s also and his future with her. “Can’t you make peace with him?” he demanded wildly.
“Peace——” the Speaker began in a more vehement tone. But before he could go on the door was opened and two servants appeared, dragging between them a torn and disheveled man, whose bloodshot eyes were rolling madly in their sockets, and whose face was white and twisted with pain. Just inside the room they let go his arms, and he fell sprawling on the floor with a faint moan.
“Peace!” cried the Speaker, rising from his chair and pointing at the man. “That is the ambassador of peace I shall send back to the President! Peace between us, I thank God, is impossible unless he humbles himself to me!”
Jeremy took a step towards the prostrate figure and recoiled again, seeing that the torn garments had been roughly pulled on over lacerated and bleeding shoulders. He recovered himself and bent down over the unhappy creature, whose breath came thick and short through the writhing mouth. He looked up with horror in his eyes.
“This is ... this is the President’s messenger?” he muttered.
The Speaker nodded.
“But you didn’t do this to the men from Bradford. You let them go back untouched.”
“I will make an end of these troubles!” Again Jeremy could see in the old man a reincarnation of one of the vengeful prophets of the ancient Jews. But the next moment the menacing attitude was relaxed, and the Speaker, turning to the immobile servants, said coldly: “Take this fellow out and lay him down in the courtyard. Tether his horse fast beside him. When he is able to move, let him go back without hindrance to his master and say what has been done to him.”
The men bowed, stooped over the moaning wretch and dragged him roughly away. A profound silence followed his last inarticulate, half-conscious complaints as he was borne down the corridor.