For a moment the unhappy young man covered his face with his hands. It was as if he was wholly unable to proceed with his story or to contemplate that which was coming. With an ever-mounting interest William Shakespeare waited in silence for this emotion to pass. “I had but to speak,” the young man was able to continue at last. “I had but to cry out to my comrades, who were less than fifty yards off, and the prisoner would have been ta’en. But I did not do this.” Again came a dire threat from an overwrought mind, but with a powerful effort of will the falconer was able to proceed with his story. “But I did not do this, for beside him in the grass was Mistress Anne Feversham, the daughter of the Constable my master.” A sharp cry broke from the lips of William Shakespeare. He rose from the bench in the stress of his excitement. “You let them go free!” said the player. “Yes,” said the falconer. “I had it not in my heart to take them when she, for whom I would have given my life, had given hers for the man she loved better than her own soul.” The face of the player was all melted with compassion. His eyes of strange somberness grew fixed and dark. “But this is not the end of what I have to tell,” said the falconer. “I let Mr. Heriot and my young mistress go free; yet before that day was out the truth came to the Constable my master, that it was his own daughter who had contrived the prisoner’s escape and that she was away with him over the country-side. And my master, being one to whom honor is a jewel, posted at once to the Queen to her palace at Greenwich. With his own lips he told her that Mr. Heriot was broken free. And not a word did he speak of the part his daughter had borne in the affair, but took the whole blame of the matter upon himself. “They say that when Sir John told the news to the Queen her displeasure was terrible. They say that his story--as in faith it must with the chief part of it left out--carried so little credence to her mind that she at once suspected him of treachery, old and loyal servant as he was. She had him straightway committed to the Tower. He is to stand immediate trial before the Court of the Star Chamber on a charge of aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner of state. And as I learn from those best able to judge of such a grievous matter, my master, unless the prisoner is retaken at once, will without a doubt be condemned to the block.” Shakespeare had followed with a growing excitement as strange a story as he had ever heard in his life. There were elements in it which appealed intensely to his dramatic sense. Besides, he did not doubt that two of the chief actors in the tragedy were very close at hand. He did not doubt that they were that fascinating pair of vagabonds who had wrought upon his curiosity so short a time ago. CHAPTER XVI