With Bothwell it was quite otherwise.
He looked around him with the utmost nonchalance, and scarcely thought of Anna, though the scene was quite enough to bring her fully back to his mind; but his passion for Mary had completely absorbed or obliterated every other fancy, feeling, and sentiment.
A change had come over his features; his forehead was paler and more thoughtful, his eyes had lost much of their bold and reckless expression, and there was a decided melancholy in his fine face, which excited the interest of all who regarded him. He had become more taciturn; even Hob Ormiston had lost much of his loquacity, and now, depressed by the gloomy prospect of their fortunes, walked in silence by the side of the dejected and miserable Hepburn of Bolton.
"Captain Alborg," said Bothwell, "whither dost thou wend with us now?"
"To the royal castle of Bergen—to the hereditary governor of which I must deliver thee."
"Thank Heaven! 'tis not Erick Rosenkrantz who holds command there now, or I warrant me we would have had but a short shrift, and shorter mercy, for the trick I now remember me to have played him. I marvel much what manner of person this new castellan may be; for in sooth, much of our comfort, in this most dolorous case, depends thereon."
"Be under no apprehension, Lord Earl," replied Alborg; "you are the king's prisoners, and, though accused of invasion and piracy, no castellan in Denmark or Norway can hang or quarter you without the king's express orders."
"Hang!" grumbled Ormiston; "hang thee, thou old sea-horse! Dost forget thou speakest to James, Duke of Orkney, the mate of Mary of Scotland?"
The family of Rosenkrantz were hereditary governors of Bergen, and castellans of Bergenhuis, and, as Konrad's ancestors had always followed their banner in battle, he had ever considered the castle of Bergen his home; and, with all the feeling of a returned exile, he approached its massive portal, which was flanked by broad round towers, and overhung by a strong portcullis of jagged and rusted iron, where the crossbowmen of his own Danish band were still keeping guard in their scarlet gaberdines and steel caps.
At the gate they were received by Cornelius Van Dribbel, the great butler of Bergen, who, in his flutter and pomposity at the unusual arrival of such a goodly band of prisoners and visitors, never once recognised the careworn Konrad, who was too spirit-broken to address him, and, disguised by the altered fashion of his beard and garments, was borne with the throng towards the great hall, where the superior of the fortress was to receive them.