“The criminal was one Buonespoir, the occasion our coming hither to wait upon the Queen of England and our Lady of Normandy, for such is your well-born Majesty to your loyal Jersiais.” And thereupon he plunged into an impeachment of De Carteret of St. Ouen’s, and stumbled through a blunt broken story of the wrongs and the sorrows of Michel and Angele and the doings of Buonespoir in their behalf.
Elizabeth frowned and interrupted him. “I have heard of this Buonespoir, Monsieur, through others than the Seigneur of St. Ouen’s. He is an unlikely squire of dames. There’s a hill in my kingdom has long bided his coming. Where waits the rascal now?”
“In the ante-chapel, your Majesty.”
“By the rood!” said Elizabeth in sudden amazement. “In my ante-chapel, forsooth!”
She looked beyond the doorway and saw the great red-topped figure of Buonespoir, his good-natured, fearless fare, his shock of hair, his clear blue eye—he was not thirty feet away.
“He comes to crave pardon for his rank offences, your benignant Majesty,” said Lempriere.
The humour of the thing rushed upon the Queen. Never before were two such naive folk at court. There was not a hair of duplicity in the heads of the two, and she judged them well in her mind.
“I will see you stand together—you and your henchman,” she said to Rozel, and moved on to the antechapel, the Court following. Standing still just inside the doorway, she motioned Buonespoir to come near. The pirate, unconfused, undismayed, with his wide blue asking eyes, came forward and dropped upon his knees. Elizabeth motioned Lempriere to stand a little apart.
Thereupon she set a few questions to Buonespoir, whose replies, truthfully given, showed that he had no real estimate of his crimes, and was indifferent to what might be their penalties. He had no moral sense on the one hand, on the other, no fear.
Suddenly she turned to Lempriere again. “You came, then, to speak for this Michel de la Foret, the exile—?”