XXXIV.—HOW THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH WAS CONFRONTED WITH SIR THOMAS WYAT IN THE TORTURE-CHAMBER.
As Elizabeth passed beneath the portal of the Bloody Tower, on her way to the lieutenant’s lodgings, whither she was conducted after quitting Traitor’s Gate, by Bedingfeld and Sussex, she encountered the giants, who doffed their caps at her approach, and fell upon their knees. All three were greatly affected, especially Magog, whose soft and sensitive nature was completely overcome. Big tears rolled down his cheeks, and in attempting to utter a few words of consolation, his voice failed him. Touched by his distress, Elizabeth halted for a moment, and laying her hand on his broad shoulder, said in a tone, and with a look calculated to enforce her words, “Bear up, good fellow, and like a man. If I shed no tears for myself, those who love me need shed none. It is the duty of my friends to comfort—not to dishearten me. My ease is not so hopeless as you think. The queen will never condemn the innocent, and unheard. Get up, I say, and put a bold face on the matter, or you are not your father’s son.”
Roused by this address, Magog obeyed, and rearing his bulky frame to its full height, so that his head almost touched the spikes of the portcullis, cried in a voice of thunder, “Would your innocence might be proved by the combat, madam, as in our—” and he hesitated,—“I mean your royal father’s time! I would undertake to maintain your truth against any odds. Nay, I and my brethren would bid defiance to the whole host of your accusers.”
“Though I may not claim you as champions,” replied Elizabeth; “I will fight my own battle, as stoutly as you could fight it for me.”
“And your grace’s courage will prevail,” rejoined Og.
“My innocence will,” returned Elizabeth.
“Right,” cried Gog. “Your grace, I am assured, would no more harbour disloyalty against the queen than we should; seeing that—”