“The other day I saw a list of Christian captives said to have been recovered from the Turks by the Emperor Charles at Tunis, and among them was one ‘Huflit,’ described as an English señor, and his servant. I wonder now——”
Cicely sprang upon him.
“Oh! cruel wretch,” she said, “to have known this so long and not to have told me!”
“Peace, Lady,” he said, retreating before her; “I only learned it at eleven of the clock last night, when you were fast asleep. Yesterday is not this same day, and therefore ’tis the other day, is it not?”
“Surely you might have woke me. But, swift, where is he now?”
“How can I know? Not here, at least. But the writing said——”
“Well, what did the writing say?”
“I am trying to think—my memory fails me at times; perhaps you will find the same thing when you have my years, should it please Heaven——”
“Oh! that it might please Heaven to make you speak! What said the writing?”
“Ah! I have it now. It said, in a note appended amidst other news, for—did I tell you this was a letter from his Grace’s ambassador in Spain? and, oh! his is the vilest scrawl to read. Nay, hurry me not—it said that this ‘Sir Huflit’—the ambassador has put a query against his name—and his servant—yes, yes, I am sure it said his servant too—well, that they both of them, being angry at the treatment they had met with from the infidel Turks—no, I forgot to add there were three of them, one a priest, who did otherwise. Well, as I said, being angry, they stopped there to serve with the Spaniards against the Turks till the end of that campaign. There, that is all.”