"The worse luck mine," said the executioner. "I had dreamed so surely that your honour had made me noble;--and then the fall of my sword?" "Take a bowl of wine, and forget your auguries." "With your honour's permission, no," said the executioner; "to drink before noon were to endanger the nicety of my hand." "Be silent, then, and mind your duty," said De Hagenbach. Francis took up his sheathless sword, wiped the dust reverently from it, and withdrew into a corner of the chamber, where he stood leaning with his hands on the pommel of the fatal weapon. Almost immediately afterwards, Kilian entered at the head of five or six soldiers, conducting the two Philipsons, whose arms were tied down with cords. "Approach me a chair," said the Governor, and took his place gravely beside a table, on which stood writing-materials. "Who are these men, Kilian, and wherefore are they bound?" "So please your excellency," said Kilian, with a deep respect of manner, which entirely differed from the tone, approaching to familiarity, with which he communicated with his master in private, "we thought it well that these two strangers should not appear armed in your gracious presence; and when we required of them to surrender their weapons at the gate, as is the custom of the garrison, this young gallant must needs offer resistance. I admit he gave up his weapon at his father's command." "It is false!" exclaimed young Philipson; but his father making a sign to him to be silent, he obeyed instantly. "Noble sir," said the elder Philipson, "we are strangers, and unacquainted with the rules of this citadel; we are Englishmen, and unaccustomed to submit to personal mishandling; we trust you will have excuse for us, when we found ourselves, without any explanation of the cause, rudely seized on by we knew not whom. My son, who is young and unthinking, did partly draw his weapon, but desisted at my command, without having altogether unsheathed his sword, far less made a blow. For myself, I am a merchant, accustomed to submit to the laws and customs of the countries in which I traffic; I am in the territories of the Duke of Burgundy, and I know his laws and customs must be just and equitable. He is the powerful and faithful ally of England, and I fear nothing while under his banner." "Hem! hem!" replied De Hagenbach, a little disconcerted by the Englishman's composure, and perhaps recollecting, that, unless his passions were awakened (as in the case of the Swiss, whom he detested), Charles of Burgundy deserved the character of a just though severe prince,--"Fair words are well, but hardly make amends for foul actions. You have drawn swords in riot, and opposition to the Duke's soldiers, when obeying the mandates which regulate their watch."