"Yes, yes, of ten," replied the Portuguese. "It was just ten, I remember."
Sir Osborne's patience was exhausted.
"Vagabond! thief!" cried he, "do you remember my scourging you with the stirrup-leathers in Flanders, till there was not an inch of skin upon your back?"
"Yes, yes, that was your turn," said the captain; "I scourge you now."
"Remark what he says," cried Sir Osborne, to those who stood round, "and all of you bear witness in case----"
"Prisoner, you stand committed," cried Sir Payan, in a loud voice. "Take him away! Suffer him not to speak! Richard Heartley, place him in the strong-room at the foot of the stair-case, and having locked the door, keep guard over him. Captain, stay you with me; all the rest, go."
The commands of Sir Payan were instantly obeyed; and the room being cleared, he pressed his hands before his eyes, and thought deeply for some moments.
"He is mine!" cried he at length, "he is mine! And shall I let him out of my own hands now that I have him, when 'twould be so easy to furnish him with a hook and a halter wherewith to hang himself, as the good chaplain and John Bellringer did to the heretic Hun, in the Lollards' Tower last year? But no, that is too fresh in the minds of men, and too many suspicions are already busy. So, my captain--I forgot. Sit down, my good captain. I am, as we agreed, about to give this young man into your hands to take to Cornwall. Why do you laugh?"
"He! he! Cornwall," cried the captain; "I do not go in Cornwall."
"Nay, some time in your life you will probably voyage to Cornwall as well as to other lands," said Sir Payan. "Now, 'tis the same to me whether you take him there now or a hundred years hence: you may carry him all over the world if you will, and drop him at the antipodes."