"Ha! thou scratchin' divil; why dost thou not be quoite? 'Twill do thee no good to stroike: mine arm is armoured. Uh! thou baste," he growled, as the dagger struck his bare hand. "Oi must thin finish thee." And releasing the hand that he had held at the back of the swine-like neck, and still holding the struggling keeper from the floor with the other, he struck him a blow upon the head with his clenched fist. There was a sound like that made by an egg when it is let fall upon a stone. A trembling from head to foot. The knees drew partly up, and then the legs stretched out full length, and stiff, and the keeper which had flung at me his taunts had died by the hand of my Herculean squire.
"Oh! my poor Michael, what hast thou done?" I cried. "Now thy honest life must pay for this."
"Beg pardon, sor, but playze don't spake so loud; some wan may hear us," said he, as he carried the dead jailer by the neck and laid him tenderly upon the bed.
"Oi had not mint to kill thee, thou poor fool; but Sor Fridrick tould me to make thee quoite, and, as thou wouldst scratch, I saw no other way." This to the body.
"But what means all this, Michael?" I asked, when I had done embracing him, (I could have kissed him; so glad was I to again see his honest face) at which he blushed like a maiden.
"Sure, sor, this same mysterious litter 'll till ye all, sor. Ser Fridrick found it on his table whin he returned to-noight." And then he told me, shortly, all that had happened since mine arrest.
"And hath Richmond yet landed?" I asked eagerly.
"Yis sor, Sor Fridrick tould me that he was now on his way to London. The King laves the city to-morrow, with an army, to take up his place at Leicester, as Oi think."
"Why Leicester?"
"Sor Fridrick said 'twas that he moight be near the cintre o' the country, so that his min can rache him without havin' to march far."