And Mr. Bentinck laughed. "Truly you did," he replied, "and more than you purposed telling. These trappings," he continued, turning to the Prince, "are the same that were stolen from Your Highness's guard in the affair of the orchard. I think we have proof enough."
His Highness approached at once the window and the prisoner.
"Would Your Holiness hang from that elm?" he asked, pointing to the great tree that stands over against the stable. "If not, a true account of all these matters will save the tree so foul a fruit. I hear it is thought you abuse your masters as much as ourselves, forging written powers beyond their intent. You shall have some hours to make choice between confession and the rope." And he bade the guard that stood at the great door to take him away. "And look to it," said His Highness to the young officer, as he was about following after his men and their prisoner, "that no woman come near him." He then laughed a little at his jest, which by the direction of his glance I took to be aimed at myself, and, turning to M. de Rondiniacque, asked how he came to lay hands upon the fellow.
"I owe him to Mistress Prudence here, Your Highness," replied the Frenchman. Whereupon the Prince would have Prudence to tell him of the matter.
Little Prue, as she did afterwards tell me, was "all of a twitter" betwixt pride and bashfulness, and it was only with much blushing and stammering that she at length found her voice.
"I' fecks, Your High and Great Mightiness, sir," she said at last, "I have been fatting him like a great pullet in the loft of our barn. I did take him for a soldier you would have hanged for thieving."
"How chanced it," said the Prince, "that you knew our need of him?"
Now this was for Prue a very distressful question, and, since she would not tell the truth, nor could readily think upon a fiction of any appearance, she felt herself in sorry plight, which she made no better by showing very plainly in her face the distress that she felt. Her rescue came quickly from a source whence it was little expected. For her piteous glance of appeal was cast in vain on M. de Rondiniacque, who himself was not a little taken aback by the Prince's question, and then in a very helpless fashion she passed it on to me. And I, all in the dark as I was, strove blindly for the means to come to her aid, when Mr. Bentinck, with a little laugh that was very dry and yet vastly humorous, interfered.
"It were best, Your Highness," he said, "to pass that point."
The Prince looked upon him for a moment, and seemed to lay the matter aside in his mind for future enlightening.