For a moment I thought they would hew me limb from limb, but my Lord quelled the fierce outburst with a word.
"Put up your swords, gentlemen. We shall know how to deal with this traitor," he said. And then to me: "Go on, sir, if you please; there has been a battle, as I take it?"
"There has, indeed. The mountain men came up with us in the afternoon of the Saturday. In an hour one-third of the major's force was dead or dying, the major himself was slain, and every living man left on the field was a prisoner."
Again a dozen swords hissed from their scabbards, and again I heard the little cry of misery from the table-foot. I bowed my head, looking momently to pay the penalty; but once more my Lord put the swords aside.
"Let us have a clean breast of it this time, Captain Ireton," he said. "You know well what you have earned, and nothing you can say will make it better or worse for you. Was this your purpose in making your submission to me?"
"It was."
"And you have been a rebel from the first?"
I met the cold anger in the womanish eyes as a condemned man might.
"I have, my Lord—since the day nine years agone when I learned that your king's minions had hanged my father in the Regulation."
"Then it was a farrago of lies you told me about your adventures in the western mountains?"