"It is false, sir!" answered the earl, gazing on him fixedly. "Whoever I am, I came not here as a spy."
"Do you mean to deny your name, my lord?" demanded Colonel Hotham.
"I mean to answer no questions, sir," said the earl, "but merely to give you the lie in your teeth, when you assert a falsehood. I stand upon your father's safe-conduct, and call him to witness that he gave it to me."
"The pass I tore was not in favour of the Earl of Beverley," replied the officer; "and that you are he will soon be proved, though I thought fit to call upon these men first. Ask Colonel Jackson to step hither," he continued, speaking to the guard, "and the two other gentlemen in the red room."
The name he mentioned was familiar to the ear of Lord Beverley, who remembered that Colonel Jackson was in the hall where he had had his first interview with Sir John Hotham, but, owing to the disguise which he had assumed, had not recognised him on that occasion. He could little hope, however, that the parliamentary officer would fail to do so now, when his attention was particularly drawn to the examination, and the matter was but too soon decided. Three gentlemen were one by one introduced into the room, and told to examine the earl and state who he was; and each, though with apparent reluctance, pronounced the words, "Lord Beverley."
"The case is clear, gentlemen," said Colonel Hotham. "The Earl of Beverley, under a feigned name and with an invalid pass, has introduced himself into this garrison. It is for you to say, whether, under these circumstances, he is or is not a spy, and subject to the invariable law of such cases."
"Remembering always," rejoined the earl, "that you have no proof that the safe-conduct was invalid, Colonel Hotham having torn it, so that it has never been beneath your eyes; and not forgetting that, even supposing this to be a lawfully-constituted court-martial--which I deny, he having no authority to summon one--he has refused to call the only witness I judged necessary to my defence."
He spoke calmly and firmly, with his cheek perhaps a shade paler than it usually was, but with no other visible sign of emotion, while the countenance of Colonel Hotham, on whom his eyes were fixed, worked with many mingled passions which resisted control.
"This is all vain and foolish!" cried the latter; "I will tell the earl that I have authority, which I should not scruple to exercise, to put him to death at once, but that I have thought it better to give him the chance of this investigation."
"Young man," said the military preacher, addressing Hotham in a solemn tone, "if you give a man in bonds a chance, it should be a fair one. Such has not been afforded the prisoner. Why did you tear the paper? Why do you now refuse to confront him with the witness he calls?--and if that witness be too ill, why not wait till he be well, as he requires? Why not, if not to doom him to death at your pleasure? I will go no farther in this--I wash my hands of this blood."