“I have given your Lordship my answer.”
Galmoy pushed his chair back from the table and his face grew purple with passion. Then he turned to the officers who were sitting round him, bringing his hand heavily down on the table. “God´s blood, gentlemen, what think you of that? I have been blamed by those who should know better, for the practice of a little just severity, and His Majesty would pet and pamper these rebels and treat them as faithful subjects who had been led astray. And here you have the issue. Every peasant and scurvy citizen struts about with armour on his back and a weapon in his hand, as if by the grace of God he had divine right to use the same. These are airs that will find no countenance while I am master of ceremonies.”
“This young gentleman should know better,” said one of the officers with a sneer, “for if I mistake not I have seen him before. Pray, sir, have we not met in Dublin when you were of Mountjoy´s regiment?”
“You can do what you please,” said Gervase, forgetting the caution he had promised himself to observe; “I am in your hands, but I will answer no questions; and if it be your good pleasure to murder me, on your heads is the infamy.”
“We will answer for ourselves whatever we do,” Galmoy answered. “But remember, the toast is waiting, and no man in my presence will refuse to drink to the health of His Majesty.”
“I will not drink it, and no man living will force me. I have already given you my reasons.”
“In good time,” said Galmoy, “we shall see. How say you, Major? Do you recognize this stiff-necked Whig as being lately in the service of His Majesty?”
“On that head,” was the answer, “I have no doubt. He was lodged at the Bunch of Grapes hard by the Castle, and though we were not intimate, I have seen him too frequently to be mistaken.”
“Then, by Heaven, the cup of his transgression is full and the provost-marshal must see that he drinks it. I will take the matter on my own shoulders and answer for it to whomsoever may question me. Look you, sergeant, take the prisoner without, and see that he drinks that measure of wine. A lighted match, if properly applied, will bring him to reason. In the morning you will see that he is shot before the door an hour before we march, for I do not like these things arranged hurriedly. For the other ´twere a pity he should not bear him company. Let them both go together.”
Weakened as he was by the loss of blood, and unstrung by the ordeal he had just passed through, Gervase tottered and fell on the bench beside which he had been standing. The room swam round him, and though he strove against it he felt that his senses were rapidly failing him. He would have fallen upon the floor, but De Laprade springing forward and placing his arm round him, supported him on the seat.