"Nay ... prithee, listen!" he said, seating himself upon a lightning-riven log, whilst Sir Richard took stand against its splintered, upright trunk. "The royal youth was fair-haired, pale and sickly. All my cunning arts were impotent to stay the implacable hand of death. Thus, Sir Knight, did the young Duke pass into oblivion ... beneath my very roof, and here in bleak Scotland. I durst not even acclaim his passing; but laid him, then, within an unmarked, though not an unmourned, grave. Slowly, stealthily, but surely, I had been massing a power behind him that would have swept him straight upon England's throne. Upon either coast, Sir Richard, this power is still augmenting. Ships speed me soldiers from France and Spain upon the east, and from Holland and Italy upon the west." He paused for a space, then,--"Dost find my tale interesting?" he asked. "Above any I have ever heard," Sir Richard told him. "And what wouldst thou say," he resumed, raising his hand impressively, "an I swore to thee that I had found a brave-hearted and goodly youth whose right to a seat upon the throne of England took precedence over that of the usurper now sitting there? A tyrant ... who gave warrant of death into the hands of his God-brother, and laid command upon him to deliver it upon that brother's executioner ... what wouldst thou say--Sir Richard Rohan, Earl of Warwick, son of Edward, Duke of Clarence?" Sir Richard felt as though the meshes of a far-spread net were dropping down about him. "I cannot say.... Even I cannot think!" he cried, burying his face in his arms. "Thou art but a brave-hearted, artless youth, Sir Richard ... Sire. Enough hast thou heard to-day to turn the head of Cæsar. Think upon what I have said ... upon what I have yet to say ... and make answer at thy calmer leisure," said Tyrrell in a manner of voice dignified, pacific, kind. Then, reaching across, he grasped the young knight's arm and drew him to a seat beside him upon the fallen log. "Once Lord Douglas," he then resumed, "was sworn ally of mine; but a craven traitor, whom we now know to be the Renegade Duke of Buckingham, carried tidings of the prince's death and my untoward interest in thy welfare into Castle Yewe. Twice since thy coming have the Douglas forces given me battle.... And yet, without the warrants, he cannot be acquainted with thy true identity ... 'tis passing----" "But I had duplicates of the warrants," Sir Richard said to him; "the which you may be sure I made haste to deliver." "Duplicates!" "Sewn within my doublet--they were passed over in thy search."