“Well,” said Hacket, in a disappointed tone, “you may keep the bit of paper. I thought it was something more important. Come, my dear Hans, despatch your man.”
Young Norbith threw himself before Ordener, crying: “This man is under my protection. My head shall fall before you touch a hair of his. I will not suffer the safe-conduct of my friend Christopher Nedlam to be violated.”
Ordener, so miraculously preserved, hung his head and felt humiliated; for he remembered how contemptuously he had inwardly received Chaplain Athanasius Munder’s touching prayer,—“May the gift of the dying benefit the traveller!”
“Pooh! pooh!” said Hacket, “you talk nonsense, good Norbith. The man is a spy; he must die.”
“Give me my axe,” repeated the giant.
“He shall not die!” cried Norbith. “What would the spirit of my poor Nedlam say, whom they hung in such cowardly fashion? I tell you he shall not die; for Nedlam will not let him die!”
“As far as that goes,” said old Jonas, “Norbith is right. Why should we kill this stranger, Mr. Hacket? He has Christopher Nedlam’s pass.”
“But he is a spy, a spy!” repeated Hacket.
The old man took his stand with the young one at Ordener’s side, and both said quietly: “He has the pass of Christopher Nedlam, who was hung at Skongen.”
Hacket saw that he must needs submit; for all the others began to murmur, and to say that this stranger should not die, as he had the safe-conduct of Nedlam the counterfeiter.