“I thank you, Sir Dacre,” cried the captive, “for silencing the empty clamour of your armed serfs. I have much to say, and I will not be overborne by insolent tumult. On you, Sir Dacre de Ermstein, I charge treachery and fraud unworthy of the last scion of the noble house of Warkcliff. I have defied you behind the battlements of Hawksglen, on the field of your defeat—defied you as a soldier and a freeman should—but never did I stoop to treachery and fraud to gain an advantage over my foe.”
“How, churl! of what fraud speak you?” demanded Sir Dacre.
“The fraud which rivetted these chains on my limbs,” answered Somervil, elevating his fettered hands. “It was fraud so dastardly and so base that it will ever cover you with shame, and expose you to the deep scorn of all whose hearts are warmed by feelings of honour.”
“Thou art beyond the pale of honour as well as of law,” retorted De Ermstein, with a blush on his hard face. “To what code of honour, observed by thyself, canst thou appeal? Wretch, this insolence, this show of frontless audacity, will avail thee nothing save to hasten thy doom. It is my sentence that upon the third morning hence thou shalt hang at the cross of Warkcliff!”
An approving hum and murmur broke from the attendant soldiery, and there came a momentary palor over the captive’s face; but it was the result of a mere evanescent emotion, and soon passed away.
“Hear me, Sir Dacre,” he exclaimed, with passionate ardour. “You have pronounced my doom, and that doom I am ready to meet. The prospect of the speedy approach of death has terrors in it for those only who have found life pleasant, and who bask under the smile of fortune, and stand high and fair in the world, who have kindred and loving friends, who have wealth and luxury to leave behind them. To such the fear of death is terrible. But I, who, from my ill-fated birth, have been the sport of destiny, I have nothing to fear from the repose of the grave; and there was mercy with Heaven even for the thief who hung quivering in his death-agony on the cross. But flatter not yourself, noble knight, that, by my murder, you shall relieve yourself of a stern and unbending foe. I never was your foe until patriotism called me to the field to oppose your inroad upon the Border. And my enmity to the enemy of my country shall live after me. My followers will deeply revenge my death. Hang me upon a gallows high as Haman’s if you will; and each night your lady shall set her hood by the blaze of your burning villages. From one end of the wide domains of Warkcliff to the other shall ravage and destruction spread. And when, in the midst of ruth, and rapine, and bloodshed, you shall stand aghast, powerless against foes whose power you can neither break nor resist, you will then think on the evil day when Ruthven Somervil died!”
Lost in thought, De Ermstein waved his hand involuntarily; and the jailor, taking that to be a sign for the removal of the prisoner, hurried him away.
The attendants hovered about for some minutes, and then noiselessly left the hall, leaving their lord standing solitary on the dais.
A light footstep approached, and, looking up, Sir Dacre beheld his lady. She was in great agitation, and came up to his chair, and, taking him by the hand, said: