And, pushing Xit aside, he sat down in the vacant chair.
“I have a present for you, fair mistress,” pursued the headsman to Lilias. “Here it is,” he added, producing a silver box from his doublet. “This pomander was given me by Queen Catherine Howard on the day of her execution, and I have kept it about me ever since, but I will now bestow it upon you, and I will tell you why. You have a neck as long, and as white, and as snowy as Queen Catherine’s, and she had the whitest and slenderest throat my axe ever touched—therefore you well deserve the box. Take it, and if you ever need my services,” he continued, with a grim smile, “you shall give it me back again. Smell to it—it is filled with delicate perfumes—ambergris, storax, benjoin, labdanum, civet and musk. You will find it a preservative against infection.”
“It seems to me to smell of blood,” said Lilias, tossing back the box. “I will not have it.”
“As you please,” said Mauger, returning it to his doublet. “Yet it is not a gift to be despised.”
“Enough of this,” said Og, somewhat sternly. “Do you not perceive that you interrupt our festivities? My wife thanks you for your intended present, but declines it.”
“I have nothing else to offer her, unless it be an earring worn by Queen Anne Boleyn——”
“I would not touch it for the world,” cried Lilias, recoiling with horror.
“You know not what you refuse,” said Mauger, testily; “but it is in vain that I try to render myself agreeable. Since I am an unwelcome guest, I will go. But I will tell you a word in parting. This day has begun blithely enough, but it will not end so merrily.”
“What meanest thou?” cried Og, angrily. “Wouldst thou insinuate that something is about to happen to me and my bride?”
“Or to me—or to any other among us?” added Xit, with equal fierceness.