"Then I accuse openly, in the face of the Protector and this company, Robert Cecil, who stands there, of the murder of his brother Herbert, and of the murder of Sir Herbert Cecil's son; and I assert that Hugh Dalton was accessory to the same!"
A shriek so wild and piercing issued from Constantia's lips that it rang over the house and terrified all its inmates, who crowded to the portal, the boundary of which they dared not pass.
It was little to be wondered that she did shriek. Turning toward the spot at which the villain pointed, the Protector saw the half-demented Baronet standing in the door-way. He had opened the closet, and come forth during the momentary absence of his attendant, and now stood moping and bowing to the assembly in a way that would have moved the pity of a heart of stone.
"Fiend!" shouted the Protector, grasping in his great anger the throat of Sir Willmott, and shaking him as he had been a reed—"'tis a false lie! He is no murderer; and if he had been, is it before his daughter that ye would speak it! Hah! I see it all now. Such is the threat—the lie—that gave you power over this excellence." He threw the ruffian from him with a perfect majesty of resentment. Gross as was the deed, the Protector condescending to throttle such as Burrell, the manner of the act was great: it was that of an avenging angel, not of an angry or impetuous man.
Sir Willmott regained his self-possession, although with feelings of wounded pride and indignation; fixing his eye upon Constantia with, if possible, increasing malignity, he spoke:—
"His Highness much honours his subject; but Mistress Cecil herself knows that what I have spoken is true—so does her father—and so does also this man! Is it not true, I ask?"
"No! I say it is false—false as hell!" answered the Buccaneer; "and if his Highness permits, I will explain."
"You say—what?" inquired Constantia, her whole countenance and figure dilating with that hope which had so long been a stranger to her bosom.
"I say that Robert Cecil is no murderer! Stand forth, Walter Cecil, and state that within the two last years, you saw your father in a Spanish monastery; and that——"
"Who is Walter Cecil?" inquired Burrell, struggling as a drowning man, while losing his last hope of salvation.