Meanwhile, as frequently happens in such cases, whilst the principal parties concerned had so far made up their differences, one of the subaltern agents concerned in their intrigues was bitterly experiencing the truth of the political maxim, that if the great have frequent need of base tools, they make amends to society by abandoning them to their fate, so soon as they find them no longer useful.
This was Hayraddin Maugrabin, who, surrendered by the Duke's officers to the King's Provost-Marshal, was by him placed in the hands of his two trusty aides-de-camp, Trois-Eschelles and Petit-André, to be dispatched without loss of time. One on either side of him, and followed by a few guards and a multitude of rabble, – this playing the Allegro, that the Penseroso, – he was marched off (to use a modern comparison, like Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy) to the neighbouring forest; where, to save all further trouble and ceremonial of a gibbet, and so forth, the disposers of his fate proposed to knit him up to the first sufficient tree.
They were not long in finding an oak, as Petit-André facetiously expressed it, fit to bear such an acorn; and placing the wretched criminal on a bank, under a sufficient guard, they began their extemporaneous preparations for the final catastrophe. At that moment, Hayraddin, gazing on the crowd, encountered the eyes of Quentin Durward, who, thinking he recognised the countenance of his faithless guide in that of the detected impostor, had followed with the crowd to witness the execution, and assure himself of the identity.
When the executioners informed him that all was ready, Hayraddin, with much calmness, asked a single boon at their hands.
"Any thing, my son, consistent with our office," said Trois-Eschelles.
"That is," said Hayraddin, "any thing but my life."
"Even so," said Trois-Eschelles, "and something more; for as you seem resolved to do credit to our mystery, and die like a man, without making wry mouths – why, though our orders are to be prompt, I care not if I indulge you ten minutes longer."
"You are even too generous," said Hayraddin.
"Truly we may be blamed for it," said Petit-André; "but what of that? – I could consent almost to give my life for such a jerry-come-tumble, such a smart, tight, firm lad, who proposes to come from aloft with a grace, as an honest fellow should do."
"So that if you want a confessor," said Trois-Eschelles –