By which, thinking him little likely to encounter and less to recognize me, I was vastly amused. "I am ready to wager, my lord," I said, laughing a little, "that the fault will be neither yours nor the nation's, should you pass me by." He looked at me for a moment with a glance so keen that I found it hard to support; then, bidding me farewell, very shortly took leave of the Prince and departed on his journey to Salisbury. As the door closed upon him, His Highness crossed the chamber and tapped Captain Royston on the shoulder. "You act with little wisdom, Captain," he said, with a merry laugh, "in the moment when the Protestant religion has triumphed over all else, to receive with coldness an offer of favor from him that is one day to be the first soldier in Europe." "I trust, Your Highness," said Royston, with something of pride in his tone, "that I have not yet lost the favor of him that is." "I see we shall have a courtier in you yet, Captain," said His Highness. "The day has been long, and I must needs ask my good host the way to my chamber. Sleep is a fickle mistress to me, and she must be wooed in season, or she will have none of me." "Since the terrible danger Your Highness has this day escaped in my house but by the goodness of God and this young gentleman's courage," said Captain Royston, "I am resolved to beg Your Highness's acceptance rather of its most secure than its most luxurious chamber. At the head of this stair," he went on, making the sentry stand aside as he threw open the door, "is a room neither very large nor finely furnished. If Your Highness will, however, deign to make use of it, he will find the bed good and the chamber warm. It has no other approach, and with Your Highness's consent I will myself watch here during the night, while Lieutenant de Rondiniacque takes my place as officer of the watch, which has been doubled, and commands every approach." "I thank you for your care of my safety, Captain Royston," said the Prince. "If the bed be as good as the supper, we will ask none better between this and London. But I believe you are over-cautious." On Captain Royston's explaining that the honor of his house was involved in His Highness's safety within it, all his dispositions were very kindly and freely accepted. Not long after which His Highness, with some kind words to me on the service I had done him, and of his purposed visit on the morrow to Drayton, retired to the chamber already mentioned, being lighted by Captain Royston, and attended by Mr. Bentinck for some discussion of matters of state.