There was a second's pause, then the King added in a voice slightly varied and strained with anger—
"Where are these men?"
"Your Majesty," replied the Speaker, "I have neither ears nor eyes in this place save as the House may be pleased to direct."
A low, deep murmur followed these words, and the blood ran up from the King's fair beard to his fair curls, and remained there, a fixed red in his haughty face.
"It is no matter," he replied. "I think my eyes are as good as another's."
He turned and glanced round the House and scrutinized the packed benches in which were those five notable empty places; through the open doors his own followers peered in with a show of pike and pistol. Oliver Cromwell looked at them and smiled. When the King's swift glance for one instant rested on him, that grim smile was still on his lips; he turned and looked down full into the flushed face of the King.
Charles smiled also with a bitterness beyond words.
"I perceive that my birds are flown," he said; "but I shall take my own course to find them."
The Speaker neither moved nor spoke; a few deep cries of "Privilege!" rose from the benches, and the King seemed to suddenly lose that proud composure he had hitherto maintained. His painful colour deepened and his countenance was confused and troubled, as if he realized how many and powerful his enemies were and how completely he was now encompassed by them.