The earl, with a perfect screech of terror, flung himself flat upon
his face and hands before the queen, with such force, that Sir Norman
expected to see his countenance make a hole in the floor.
"O madame! spare me! spare me! spare me! Have mercy on me as you hope
for mercy yourself!"
She recoiled, and drew back her very garments from his touch, as if
that touch was pollution, eyeing him the while with a glance frigid and
pitiless as death.
"There is no mercy for traitors!" she coldly said. "Confess your guilt,
and expect no pardon from me!"
"Lift him up!" shouted the dwarf, clawing the air with his hands, as if
he could have clawed the heart out of his victim's body; "back with him
to his place, guards, and see that he does not leave it again!"
Squirming, and writhing, and twisting himself in their grasp, in very
uncomfortable and eel-like fashion, the earl was dragged back to his
place, and forcibly held there by two of the guards, while his face grew
so ghastly and convulsed that Sir Norman turned away his head, and could
not bear to look at it.
"Confess!" once more yelled the dwarf in a terrible voice, while his
still more terrible eyes flashed sparks of fire--"confess, or by all
that's sacred it shall be tortured out of you. Guards, bring me the
thumb-screws, and let us see if they will not exercise the dumb devil by
which our ghastly friend is possessed!"
"No, no, no!" shrieked the earl, while the foam flew from his lips. "I
confess! I confess! I confess!"
"Good! And what do you confess?" said the duke blandly, leaning forward,
while the dwarf fell back with a yell of laughter at the success of his
ruse.
"I confess all--everything--anything! only spare my life!"
"Do you confess to having told Charles, King of England, the secrets
of our kingdom and this place?" said the duke, sternly rapping down the
petition with a roll of parchment.
The earl grew, if possible, a more ghastly white. "I do--I must! but oh!
for the love of--"
"Never mind love," cut in the inexorable duke, "it is a subject that
has nothing whatever to do with the present case. Did you or did you not
receive for the aforesaid information a large sum of money?"
"I did; but my lord, my lord, spare--"
"Which sum of money you have concealed," continued the duke, with
another frown and a sharp rap. "Now the question is, where have you
concealed it?"
"I will tell you, with all my heart, only spare my life!"
"Tell us first, and we will think about your life afterward. Let me
advise you as a friend, my lord, to tell at once, and truthfully," said
the duke, toying negligently with the thumb-screws.