The colonel, taking the Gascon's silence for despair, said to him, in a gentler tone, "I suppose your grace perceives with pain the future before you. There is enough occasion for it, it seems to me."
"To be a prisoner always in the Tower of London?"
"Yes, my lord; but you cannot enjoy much liberty here; perhaps this life of agony and continual unrest is not so much to be regretted?"
"You wish to gild the pill, as they say, sir; your motive is praiseworthy; but you appear very certain of carrying me to Barbadoes, and from there to the Tower of London?"
"To accomplish this, my lord, I had brought with me a most determined man. He is dead, however—a most frightful death." And Rutler trembled in spite of himself at the remembrance of John's death.
"And so, sir, you were reduced to accomplish this expedition yourself?"
"Yes, my lord."
"And you flatter yourself that you can carry me off, unaided?"
"Yes, my lord."
"You are sure of that?"