"Then we accept," I said gravely. "I give myself up. Let them take me."
CHAPTER XV.
[BEFORE THE COURT.]
I had not seen the first moonbeams pierce the broken casement of the tower-room, but I was there to watch the last tiny patch of silver glide aslant from wall to sill, and sill to frame, and so pass out. Near the fire, which had been made up, and now glowed and crackled bravely on the hearthstone at my elbow, my three jailers had set a mattress for me; and on this I sat, my back to the wall and my face to the window. The guards lounged on the other side of the hearth round a lantern, playing at dice and drinking. They were rough, hard men, whose features, as they leaned over the table and the light played strongly on their faces, blazoning them against a wall of shadow, were stern and rugged enough. But they had not shown themselves unkindly. They had given me a share of their wine, and had pointed to the window and shrugged their shoulders, as much as to say that it was my own fault if I suffered from the draught. Nay, from time to time, one of them would turn from his game and look at me--in pity, I think--and utter a curse that was meant for encouragement.
Even when the first excitement had passed away, I felt none of the stupefaction which I have heard that men feel in such a position. My brain was painfully active. In vain I longed to sleep, if it were only that I might not be thought to fear death. But the fact that I was to be tried first, though the sentence was a certainty, distracted and troubled me. My thoughts paced from thing to thing; now dwelling on the Duchess and her husband, now flitting to Petronilla and Sir Anthony, to the old place at home and the servants; to strange petty things, long familiar--a tree in the chase at Coton, an herb I had planted. Once a great lump rose in my throat, and I had to turn away to hide the hot tears that would rise at the thought that I must die in this mean German town, in this unknown corner, and be buried and forgotten! And once, too, to torment me, there rose a doubt in my mind whether Master Bertie would recover; whether, indeed, I had not thrown my life away for nothing. But it was too late to think of that! And the doubt, which the Evil One himself must have suggested, so terrible was it passed away quickly.
My thoughts raced, but the night crawled. We had surrendered about ten, and the magistrates, less pitiful than the jailers, had forbidden my friends to stay with me. An hour or more after midnight, two of the men lay down and the other sat humming a drinking-song, or at intervals rose to yawn and stretch himself and look out of the window. From time to time, the cry of the watchman going his rounds came drearily to my ears, recalling to me the night I had spent behind the boarding in Moorgate Street, when the adventure which was to end to-morrow--nay, to-day--in a few hours--had lured me away. To-day? Was I to die to-day? To perish with all my plans, hopes, love? It seemed impossible. As I gazed at the window, whose shape began to be printed on my brain, it seemed impossible. My soul so rose in rebellion against it, that the perspiration stood on my brow, and I had to clasp my hands about my knees, and strain every muscle to keep in the cry I would have uttered! a cry, not of fear, but of rage and remonstrance and revolt.
I was glad to see the first streaks of dawn, to hear the first cock-crowings, and, a few minutes later, the voices of men in the street and on the stairs. The sounds of day and life acted magically upon me. The horror of the night passed off as does the horror of a dream. When a man, heavily cloaked and with his head covered, came in, the door being shut behind him by another hand, I looked up at him bravely. The worst was past.
He replied by looking down at me for a few moments without disclosing himself, the collar of his cloak being raised so high that I could see nothing of his features. My first notion that he must be Master Lindstrom passed away; and, displeased by his silent scrutiny, and thinking him a stranger, I said sharply, "I hope you are satisfied, sir."
"Satisfied?" he replied, in a voice which made me start so that the irons clanked on my feet, "Well, I think I should be--seeing you so, my friend!"
It was Clarence! Of all men, Clarence! I knew his voice, and he, seeing himself recognized, lowered his cloak. I stared at him in stupefied silence, and he at me in a grim curiosity. I was not prepared for the blunt abruptness with which he continued--using almost the very words he had used when face to face with me in the flood: "Now tell me who you are, and what brought you into this company?"