“Leave that to me,” said Lovel; “you cannot quit the Tower with safety, as, if you should be seen and recognised, your instant arrest would follow. I will go to the ‘Rose and Crown’ at once, and give full instructions to your friends. Retire to the inner room, and do not stir forth from it till my return.”
And as Osbert complied, the keeper of the treasure left the Jewel House, and set out on his errand.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW THE PLOT WAS DISCOVERED BY XIT, AND DISCLOSED
BY HIM TO MAGOG.
Meantime, Magog, with whom Lovel had parted at the entrance of Saint Thomas’s Tower, had gone in, and made his way through the side-passage, previously described, to the interior of Traitors’ Gate. He found the chests lying upon the platform, just as they had been laid there by himself and his brothers, and sitting down upon one of them, presently fell asleep, and made the vaulted roof resound with his deep breathing. How long he remained in this state he could not say, but he was roused by feeling something crawling, as he thought, over his face, and supposing it to be a gigantic water-rat—the place being infested with such vermin—he put out his hand, and catching hold of the noxious creature, as he deemed it, was about to throw it into the water, when a shrill cry admonished him that the fancied water-rat was no other than Xit.
“Wouldst drown me, Magog?” shrieked the dwarf, clinging to him.