Sabrino understood Sir John, and hung his head sorrowfully.
"Nay, poor devil," he added, kindly, "thou shalt byde with me, and I bite my glove at all who dare say nay."
"Could we not paint him, or dye him, or scrub him well with hot water, so that, in colour, at least, he might be like other men?"
"We shall see," replied the captain of the arquebuses; "I will talk with my old confessor about it—he knows everything. But it hath such capacious eyes, and such a nose!"
"By Jove! its face is like a Highland buckler!" added the other; and they paused to regard Sabrino with all the curiosity a new species of animal would have excited.
"Sir John Forrester," said Lintstock, "I ken weel that this creature can clamber like a squirrel; and gif we show him the tower wherein my puir maister girns and granes for his luve and his liberty, I warrant he'll sune rax to the window, Put a saw between his teeth, a coil o' stout rope on his back, and I warrant me we shall hae Sir Roland Vipont beside us in three hours after."
"Thou art right, Lintstock," said Leslie, while Sabrino, on hearing himself referred to, looked fixedly at the one-eyed gunner; "this creature's black hide hath brought thy brave master and his fair mistress into sore trouble, and I know of none who ought to exert his energies more than he in their service. It is agreed; we shall show him the rock, the tower, the window, and that by daybreak to-morrow."
Sabrino understood them perfectly, while he gazed at them with the painful and speechless anxiety which his face depicted at times so powerfully; and, anxious to express his gratitude, his eyes shone, while he grinned and nodded, saying—
"Ees—ees—ees!" laid his hands repeatedly on his breast, and placed the hand of Sir John Forrester on his woolly head, in token that he was their liege and true man.
At that moment a loud knock was heard at the door.