“Thou art in a mighty merciful humour this morning, Pearson,” said Cromwell, not entirely satisfied.
“If your Excellency please, the halter is ready, and so is the provost-marshal.”
“Nay, if such a bloody fellow as thou hast spared him, it would ill become me to destroy him,” said the General. “But then, here is among Rochecliffe’s papers the engagement of twenty desperadoes to take us off—some example ought to be made.”
“My lord,” said Zerubbabel, “consider now how often this young man, Albert Lee, hath been near you, nay, probably, quite close to your Excellency, in these dark passages which he knew, and we did not. Had he been of an assassin’s nature, it would have cost him but a pistol-shot, and the light of Israel was extinguished. Nay, in the unavoidable confusion which must have ensued, the sentinels quitting their posts, he might have had a fair chance of escape.”
“Enough Zerubbabel; he lives,” said the General. “He shall remain in custody for some time, however, and be then banished from England. The other two are safe, of course; for you would not dream of considering such paltry fellows as fit victims for my revenge.”
“One fellow, the under-keeper, called Joliffe, deserves death, however,” said Pearson, “since he has frankly admitted that he slew honest Joseph Tomkins.”
“He deserves a reward for saving us a labour,” said Cromwell; “that Tomkins was a most double-hearted villain. I have found evidence among these papers here, that if we had lost the fight at Worcester, we should have had reason to regret that we had ever trusted Master Tomkins—it was only our success which anticipated his treachery—write us down debtor, not creditor, to Joceline, an you call him so, and to his quarter-staff.”
“There remains the sacrilegious and graceless cavalier who attempted your Excellency’s life last night,” said Pearson.
“Nay,” said the General, “that were stooping too low for revenge. His sword had no more power than had he thrusted with a tobacco-pipe. Eagles stoop not at mallards, or wild-drakes either.”
“Yet, sir,” said Pearson, “the fellow should be punished as a libeller. The quantity of foul and pestilential abuse which we found in his pockets makes me loth he should go altogether free—Please to look at them, sir.”