"Why, that I betake myself to my beast's back, and ride away as I came," answered Jodelle undisturbedly.
"But suppose we do not let thee go," continued the king; "and farther, suppose we hang thee up to the elm before the door."
"Then you will have broken a king's honour to win a dead carcase," answered the Brabançois; "for nothing shall you ever know from me that may stead you in your purpose."
"But we have tortures, sir, would almost make the dead speak," rejoined King John. "Such, at least, as would make thee wish thyself dead a thousand times, ere death came to thy relief."
"I doubt thee not, sir king," answered Jodelle, with the same determined tone and manner in which he had heretofore spoken--"I doubt thee not; and, as I pretend to no more love for tortures than my neighbours, 'tis more than likely I should tell thee all I could tell, before the thumbscrew had taken half a turn; but it would avail thee nothing, for nought that I could tell thee would make my men withdraw till they have me amongst them; and, until they be withdrawn, you may as well try to surprise the sun of heaven, guarded by all his rays, as catch Prince Arthur and Guy de Coucy."
"Why wouldst thou not come to the camp, then?" demanded John. "If thou wert so secure, why camest thou not when I sent for thee?"
"Because, King John, I once served your brother Richard," replied the Brabançois, "and during that time I made me so many dear friends in Mercader's band, that I thought, if I came to visit them, without two or three hundred men at my back, they might, out of pure love, give me a banquet of cold steel, and lodging with our lady mother,--the earth."
"The fellow jests, lords! On my soul! the fellow jests!" cried John.--"Get thee back, sirrah, a step or two; and let me consult with my nobles," he added.--"Look to him, Pembroke, that he escape not."
John then spoke for several minutes with the gentlemen who had attended him to this extraordinary meeting; and the conversation, though carried on in a low tone, seemed in no slight degree animated; more especially on the part of Lord Pembroke, who frequently spoke loud enough for such words to be heard as "disgrace to chivalry--disgust the barons of England--would not submit to have their order degraded," &c.
At length, however, a moment of greater calm succeeded; and John, beckoning the coterel forward, spoke to him thus:--