“I will speak to them first,” said Cromwell.—“Hollo! who is within there?”
“Who is it enquires?” answered Sir Henry Lee from the interior; “or what want you here at this dead hour?”
“We come by warrant of the Commonwealth of England,” said the General.
“I must see your warrant ere I undo either bolt or latch,” replied the knight; “we are enough of us to make good the castle: neither I nor my fellows will deliver it up but upon good quarter and conditions; and we will not treat for these save in fair daylight.”
“Since you will not yield to our right, you must try our might,” replied Cromwell. “Look to yourselves within; the door will be in the midst of you in five minutes.”
“Look to yourselves without,” replied the stout-hearted Sir Henry; “we will pour our shot upon you, if you attempt the least violence.”
But, alas! while he assumed this bold language, his whole garrison consisted of two poor terrified women; for his son, in conformity with the plan which they had fixed upon, had withdrawn from the hall into the secret recesses of the palace.
“What can they be doing now, sir?” said Phœbe, hearing a noise as it were of a carpenter turning screw-nails, mixed with a low buzz of men talking.
“They are fixing a petard,” said the knight, with great composure. “I have noted thee for a clever wench, Phœbe, and I will explain it to thee: ’Tis a metal pot, shaped much like one of the roguish knaves’ own sugarloaf hats, supposing it had narrower brims—it is charged with some few pounds of fine gunpowder. Then”—
“Gracious! we shall be all blown up!” exclaimed Phœbe,—the word gunpowder being the only one which she understood in the knight’s description.