Captain Royston and Mr. William Bentinck, who, with displeasure clearly marked upon his countenance, had followed the Prince's words to his host, joined him by the side of the dying man, of whom my view, as I stood modestly behind, was plainer than I could wish. Indeed it was a dreadful sight that I take no pleasure to recall. His Highness, bending down very tenderly, wiped the bloody foam from the tortured lips; the wandering eyes fixed themselves upon the face of the man they had watched to slay, and then: "The priest—the priest!" said the dying man.
"Poor fool!" muttered Count Schomberg in French; "he fondly hopes a priest might yet bring him to heaven."
"The priest—the priest!" repeated the sufferer, but more faintly.
"A priest may at least smooth his passage from earth," said the Prince, very pitifully, when one stepped out from among the prisoners, saying: "I am a priest. If he needs the comfort of the Church——"
But the dying man interrupted his words. With a last effort he raised himself a little, and said in a stronger voice, but broken with gasping sobs: "It was the priest—it was he that brought me here—brought me to this. God's curse upon him!" And so he died.
But I marked that his eye had not fallen upon him that offered the comforts of religion. This man was tall and dark, of a countenance marked by great nobility, and expressive of a great sorrow, of which I could not readily determine whether the cause were constant or occasional, so suitable did it appear to the lines of a face at once ascetic and severe. There was that in his eyes, dark and deep set, moreover, that drew my gaze in a manner I could by no means account for—which is indeed little wonderful, seeing the man was my mother's son and my father's, and I knew it not. To myself I had just said that the man was not wicked, and but suffered for his evil company, when the Prince addressed him in tones very different from those I had hitherto heard him use: "You keep ill company, Sir Priest," he said.
There was a little pause ere the priest replied, while the two men gazed, each unyielding, in the other's eyes. Then: "That I am not of the company you find me in," said the priest, "is less strange than to find a Prince of Your Highness's descent and marriage alliance consorting with rebels and traitors. In good sooth, I took less pleasure in these misguided and hapless wretches," he went on, speaking with a scornful kind of pity, "than it appears Your Highness does make shift to find in his uncle's rebel subjects. But I will tell Your Highness, more for the satisfaction of my carnal sense of honor than in hope or wish to obtain credence of him, that I had no part or lot in this attempt at wicked murder. Your friends," he added, waving his hand in indication of the officers standing by, "will doubtless tell you that I neither struck blow nor carried weapon. For myself I will add that I knew not the purpose of their gathering."
"I do not believe you," said the Prince.
"I do not expect belief," said the priest, unruffled in his calm.
His Highness turned from him in a disgust I thought very discourteous, and at once directed Captain Royston to see them all under lock and key. And so the prisoners were hurried off to the house, and I stood wondering had I ever before set eyes on this naughty priest, when the Prince approached me, saying, as if nothing had interrupted our conversation: "I am sorry you have broke your sword, my pretty lad." And as he spoke there gathered around us some half-dozen of the officers and gentlemen that were there—Count Schomberg, to wit, and Mr. Bentinck, with him that we addressed as "Captain Jennings," and one that I was soon to know as M. de Rondiniacque, and some others. "But that loss," His Highness continued, "is easier repaired than the cleaving asunder of my poor brain-pan had been, which was like enough to come about, gentlemen, I take it, but for the lad here and his horse and sword."