“Arthur,” said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floor than on his nephew, “will you not trust to the gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness, of your loving uncle?”
“I will tell my loving uncle that,” replied the boy, “when he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to me and ask the question.”
The King looked at him and went out. “Keep that boy close prisoner,” said he to the warden of the castle.
Then the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles how the Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, “Put out his eyes, and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy was kept.” Others said, “Have him stabbed.” Others, “Have him hanged.” Others, “Have him poisoned.”
King John, feeling that, in any case, whatever was done afterward, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg, the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was an honorable, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal honor he prevented the torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the savages away.
The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbing suggestion next, and with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. “I am a gentleman, [pg 368] and not an executioner,” said William de Bray, and left the presence with disdain.
But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to the castle of Falaise. “On what errand dost thou come?” said Hubert to this fellow. “To dispatch young Arthur,” he returned. “Go back to him who sent thee,” answered Hubert, “and say that I will do it!”
King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince, or gain time, dispatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen.
Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert—of whom he had never stood in greater need than then—carried away by night, and lodged in his new prison: where, through the grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river Seine, rippling against the stone wall below.
One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in that boat he found his uncle and one other man.