To which courteous speech honest Ned replied with some words of his duty to His Highness of Orange; and I knew well by a certain stiffness of his manner, which was still clearly marked as he wished him a safe and pleasant journey, that the favor of "Captain Jennings" was not such as he wished to earn.
That gentleman, after some other farewells of much grace and kindness, passed on to me where I stood apart, and with a very gracious smile on his noble countenance thanked me for the service I had done him. On my asking what that might be, he was at some pains to explain, in a voice meant for me alone, that but for my timely warning and protection to His Highness, that plot might well have had a very different and terrible ending; in the blame of which fatal conclusion he himself, from the peculiarity of his position, would almost certainly have become implicated. "I hope, therefore," he said, "that we shall meet again when I have thrown aside this nom de guerre to which I have only a sort of left-handed right by marriage and necessity." And then first I guessed who he was. "But," he went on, "if I do seem to need a fresh introduction, young gentleman, when that day comes, I beg you will attribute my lack of memory to politic reasons."
By which, thinking him little likely to encounter and less to recognize me, I was vastly amused.
"I am ready to wager, my lord," I said, laughing a little, "that the fault will be neither yours nor the nation's, should you pass me by."
He looked at me for a moment with a glance so keen that I found it hard to support; then, bidding me farewell, very shortly took leave of the Prince and departed on his journey to Salisbury.
As the door closed upon him, His Highness crossed the chamber and tapped Captain Royston on the shoulder.
"You act with little wisdom, Captain," he said, with a merry laugh, "in the moment when the Protestant religion has triumphed over all else, to receive with coldness an offer of favor from him that is one day to be the first soldier in Europe."
"I trust, Your Highness," said Royston, with something of pride in his tone, "that I have not yet lost the favor of him that is."
"I see we shall have a courtier in you yet, Captain," said His Highness. "The day has been long, and I must needs ask my good host the way to my chamber. Sleep is a fickle mistress to me, and she must be wooed in season, or she will have none of me."
"Since the terrible danger Your Highness has this day escaped in my house but by the goodness of God and this young gentleman's courage," said Captain Royston, "I am resolved to beg Your Highness's acceptance rather of its most secure than its most luxurious chamber. At the head of this stair," he went on, making the sentry stand aside as he threw open the door, "is a room neither very large nor finely furnished. If Your Highness will, however, deign to make use of it, he will find the bed good and the chamber warm. It has no other approach, and with Your Highness's consent I will myself watch here during the night, while Lieutenant de Rondiniacque takes my place as officer of the watch, which has been doubled, and commands every approach."