"Speak, sirrah!" cried the Bruce, assuming a more stern tone of authority.
"What it meriteth in the mind of Scotland's lawful king," replied Peter, at length; "but spare the old father for the sake of his child, and what is left of my substance shall go to support the crown, which a king's leniency to repentant subjects renders the more lustrous."
"Flattery is no atonement for rebellion," thundered out Bruce.
"God have mercy upon me!" cried Peter of Ghent. "Thou knowest, my liege, that I had no power to resist the command of the governor, when he demanded of me a thousand nobles; nor could I resist thy higher authority, wert thou to ask of me to lay another thousand at this moment at thy royal feet."
"Thou wouldst now even bargain for thy head, as thou didst for the marriage of thy fair daughter," cried Bruce. "Is it not true, sir, that thou didst sell the maiden to the traitor Oliphant?"
"It is even true that I did make it a condition of the advance of the thousand nobles, that he should fulfil the intentions he had manifested towards my daughter; yet I was not the less necessitated to give the money, seeing it would have been taken from me otherwise."
"Then what does the man merit who sells his daughter for the liberties of the country by whose industry and means he liveth?" replied the king. "I put it to the nobles here assembled."
"The heading-block—the heading-block," resounded in hoarse groans through the hall.
"Will she not yet throw off her veil?" muttered the king, as he cast his eyes on Anne.
"Lead Peter of Ghent to the block," he cried aloud.