CHAPTER XIV.
I will resist such entertainment, till
My enemy has more power.
The Tempest.
"That blast was but feebly blown," said De Hagenbach, ascending to the ramparts, from which he could see what passed on the outside of the gate. "Who approaches, Kilian?"
The trusty squire was hastening to meet him with the news.
"Two men with a mule, an it please your excellency; and merchants, I presume them to be."
"Merchants? 'Sdeath, villain! pedlars you mean. Heard ever man of English merchants tramping it on foot, with no more baggage than one mule can manage to carry? They must be beggarly Bohemians, or those whom the French people call Escossais. The knaves! they shall pay with the pining of their paunches for the poverty of their purses."
"Do not be too hasty, an please your excellency," quoth the squire; "small budgets hold rich goods. But, rich or poor, they are our men, at least they have all the marks—the elder, well-sized and dark-visaged, may write fifty and five years, a beard somewhat grizzled;—the younger, some two-and-twenty, taller than the first, and a well-favoured lad, with a smooth chin and light-brown mustaches."
"Let them be admitted," said the Governor, turning back in order again to descend to the street, "and bring them into the folter-kammer of the toll-house."