“I am betrayed!” she said, with her eyes fixed on the ground—“I am betrayed!—and it is fit that she, whose life has been spent in practising treason on others, should be caught in her own snare. But where is my tutor in iniquity?—where is Christian, who taught me to play the part of spy on this unsuspicious lady, until I had well-nigh delivered her into his bloody hands?”
“This,” said the King, “craves more secret examination. Let all leave the apartment who are not immediately connected with these proceedings, and let this Christian be again brought before us.—Wretched man,” he continued, addressing Christian, “what wiles are these you have practised, and by what extraordinary means?”
“She has betrayed me, then!” said Christian—“Betrayed me to bonds and death, merely for an idle passion, which can never be successful!—But know, Zarah,” he added, addressing her sternly, “when my life is forfeited through thy evidence, the daughter has murdered the father!”
The unfortunate girl stared on him in astonishment. “You said,” at length she stammered forth, “that I was the daughter of your slaughtered brother?”
“That was partly to reconcile thee to the part thou wert to play in my destined drama of vengeance—partly to hide what men call the infamy of thy birth. But my daughter thou art! and from the eastern clime, in which thy mother was born, you derive that fierce torrent of passion which I laboured to train to my purposes, but which, turned into another channel, has become the cause of your father’s destruction.—My destiny is the Tower, I suppose?”
He spoke these words with great composure, and scarce seemed to regard the agonies of his daughter, who, throwing herself at his feet, sobbed and wept most bitterly.
“This must not be,” said the King, moved with compassion at this scene of misery. “If you consent, Christian, to leave this country, there is a vessel in the river bound for New England—Go, carry your dark intrigues to other lands.”
“I might dispute the sentence,” said Christian boldly; “and if I submit to it, it is a matter of my own choice.—One half-hour had made me even with that proud woman, but fortune hath cast the balance against me.—Rise, Zarah, Fenella no more! Tell the Lady of Derby, that, if the daughter of Edward Christian, the niece of her murdered victim, served her as a menial, it was but for the purpose of vengeance—miserably, miserably frustrated!—Thou seest thy folly now—thou wouldst follow yonder ungrateful stripling—thou wouldst forsake all other thoughts to gain his slightest notice; and now thou art a forlorn outcast, ridiculed and insulted by those on whose necks you might have trod, had you governed yourself with more wisdom!—But come, thou art still my daughter—there are other skies than that which canopies Britain.”
“Stop him,” said the King; “we must know by what means this maiden found access to those confined in our prisons.”
“I refer your Majesty to your most Protestant jailer, and to the most Protestant Peers, who, in order to obtain perfect knowledge of the depth of the Popish Plot, have contrived these ingenious apertures for visiting them in their cells by night or day. His Grace of Buckingham can assist your Majesty, if you are inclined to make the inquiry.” [*]