But I found my tongue, and said: "Your Highness must in courtesy hear me."
On which, with little enough, he bade me speak.
"I do solemnly swear," said I, "before the God that shall judge us all——"
"Beware, young man," interrupted His Highness, "lest you take that awful name in vain."
"The more awful, great, and holy," I replied, "the readier my will to take it now. And even so I swear that Captain Royston is no traitor. What he has done, I have done. I will tell Your Highness all."
"Be silent," said Ned. "I do forbid it. You harm my case."
"Nay, then," I replied, "I will not. But it is even as I say."
The Prince looked in my face, and I thought that his did a little soften. "I would I believed you, boy," he said, in gentler tones. "But I do not believe."
And with that a great hope sprang into my mind, and—"Some day you must believe," I cried. "But now I will ask no more than Your Highness has already granted." And I drew forth from its sheath the sword His Highness had given me.
"What is your meaning?" asked the Prince sternly, the frown coming dark again across his face.