“I will tarry no jot of time,” said the General; “fence the communication of Love’s Ladder, as it is called, below, as I take it for almost certain, that the party whom we have driven from fastness to fastness during the night, has at length sprung to the top of yonder battlements from the place where we now stand. Finding the turret is guarded below, the place he has chosen for his security will prove a rat-trap, from whence there is no returning.”
“There is a cask of gunpowder in this cabinet,” said Pearson; “were it not better, my lord, to mine the tower, if he will not render himself, and send the whole turret with its contents one hundred feet in the air?”
“Ah, silly man,” said Cromwell, striking him familiarly on the shoulder; “if thou hadst done this without telling me, it had been good service. But we will first summon the turret, and then think whether the petard will serve our turn—it is but mining at last.—Blow a summons there, down below.”
The trumpets rang at his bidding, till the old walls echoed from every recess and vaulted archway. Cromwell, as if he cared not to look upon the person whom he expected to appear, drew back, like a necromancer afraid of the spectre which he has evoked.
“He has come to the battlement,” said Pearson to his General.
“In what dress or appearance?” answered Cromwell, from within the chamber.
“A grey riding-suit, passmented with silver, russet walking-boots, a cut band, a grey hat and plume, black hair.”
“It is he, it is he!” said Cromwell; “and another crowning mercy is vouchsafed!”
Meantime, Pearson and young Lee exchanged defiance from their respective posts.
“Surrender,” said the former, “or we blow you up in your fastness.”