The prisoners were dragged off to the battlements. But while the means of execution were in the act of being prepared, the apothecary expressed so ardent a desire to see Catharine once more, and, as he said, for the good of his soul, that the maiden, in hopes his obduracy might have undergone some change even at the last hour, consented again to go to the battlements, and face a scene which her heart recoiled from. A single glance showed her Bonthron, sunk in total and drunken insensibility; Ramorny, stripped of his armour, endeavouring in vain to conceal fear, while he spoke with a priest, whose good offices he had solicited; and Dwining, the same humble, obsequious looking, crouching individual she had always known him. He held in his hand a little silver pen, with which he had been writing on a scrap of parchment.
“Catharine,” he said—“he, he, he!—I wish to speak to thee on the nature of my religious faith.”
“If such be thy intention, why lose time with me? Speak with this good father.”
“The good father,” said Dwining, “is—he, he!—already a worshipper of the deity whom I have served. I therefore prefer to give the altar of mine idol a new worshipper in thee, Catharine. This scrap of parchment will tell thee how to make your way into my chapel, where I have worshipped so often in safety. I leave the images which it contains to thee as a legacy, simply because I hate and contemn thee something less than any of the absurd wretches whom I have hitherto been obliged to call fellow creatures. And now away—or remain and see if the end of the quacksalver belies his life.”
“Our Lady forbid!” said Catharine.
“Nay,” said the mediciner, “I have but a single word to say, and yonder nobleman’s valiancie may hear it if he will.”
Lord Balveny approached, with some curiosity; for the undaunted resolution of a man who never wielded sword or bore armour and was in person a poor dwindled dwarf, had to him an air of something resembling sorcery.”
“You see this trifling implement,” said the criminal, showing the silver pen. “By means of this I can escape the power even of the Black Douglas.”
“Give him no ink nor paper,” said Balveny, hastily, “he will draw a spell.”
“Not so, please your wisdom and valiancie—he, he, he!” said Dwining with his usual chuckle, as he unscrewed the top of the pen, within which was a piece of sponge or some such substance, no bigger than a pea.