"Bad luck indeed!" said Colonel Ashburnham. "Hotham has lied, then, for he told me you were gone."
"He spoke truth there," answered the earl; "but, as ill fortune would have it, I returned last night on business and was arrested by his son, who tore my pass, and vows he will try me as a spy."
"Ay, a curse fall upon him!" cried the other voice. "He respects no rules of honour or courtesy, and, since his father fell ill, has put me in close confinement. If Hotham could know, he would treat you vetter; but I cannot help you, for I am locked in here."
"Hush!" cried the earl; "here are steps coming."
The next moment the key was turned in the lock, the bar taken down, and two soldiers appeared. In a dull and indifferent tone, as if he were bidding the prisoner come to the morning meal, one of the men told Lord Beverley to follow to the colonel's council; and obeying, with very little hope that anything he could say would change the stern purpose of the parliamentary officer, the earl was led along the passage to what seemed a dining-hall on the same floor, in which he found Colonel Hotham seated at a table, with four inferior officers round him. Two wore the garb of the train-bands, the others seemed strangers to the city; for when the prisoners entered they were asking some questions concerning the fortifications. His appearance, however, instantly drew their eyes upon himself; and, walking with a firm step to the end of the table, he gazed calmly over them, scanning the countenance of each of those who seemed assembled to judge him, not at all abashed by the somewhat fierce stare with which one or two of them regarded him.
Colonel Hotham had in general chosen his men well. The two Londoners he had long known as very unscrupulous and fiery zealots in the cause of the parliament; and Captain Marden, one of the officers of the train-bands, whom he had called to his aid, had made himself somewhat remarkable on several occasions by his gloomy fierceness of disposition. He had commanded the party by whom the two unfortunate men mentioned by Falgate had been put to death, and he had seemed only the more morose and dogged after the horrid scene in which he had borne a part. The fourth officer was known as a religious enthusiast, a preacher in one of the conventicles of the city, and, as was generally supposed, as wild and unsparing as the rest, so that Colonel Hotham entertained no doubt that his purposes towards the prisoner would receive the sanction of these men's authority, without scruple or hesitation on their part.
After pausing for a moment, while the earl stood at the end of the table as we have described, the parliamentary commander demanded, in a sharp tone--
"What is your name?"
"Not knowing that you have any authority to ask it," replied the earl, with perfect calmness, "I shall, most undoubtedly, refuse to answer."
"That will serve you little, sir," said one of the men from London; "for if you do refuse, the court will proceed to try you without further ceremony."