Which bitter speech came near to breaking down the restraint in which the man had held himself. I saw the blood fly to his face, the half-step forward, the hands clenched by his sides; I heard the one dread word on his lips. "God--!" he gasped, and again curbed himself. "No words of heat, sir!" said the Prince. "I did once take you for my friend. Is mine the fault that you prove an enemy? Weigh well what defence you will make to-morrow; let me warn you that courts-martial in time of war are swift in procedure and deadly in sentence. Should such court hear from your lips no more than we have now heard, make your peace with God." And with that he would have left the room; but I, beside myself with terror, caught him by the arm, and tried to speak. The Prince, however, shook me off, bidding me roughly not to court his notice; saying that this was not a court of justice nor of favor, but a camp; and that I was happy not to come within the purview of its jurisdiction. But I found my tongue, and said: "Your Highness must in courtesy hear me." On which, with little enough, he bade me speak. "I do solemnly swear," said I, "before the God that shall judge us all----" "Beware, young man," interrupted His Highness, "lest you take that awful name in vain." "The more awful, great, and holy," I replied, "the readier my will to take it now. And even so I swear that Captain Royston is no traitor. What he has done, I have done. I will tell Your Highness all." "Be silent," said Ned. "I do forbid it. You harm my case." "Nay, then," I replied, "I will not. But it is even as I say." The Prince looked in my face, and I thought that his did a little soften. "I would I believed you, boy," he said, in gentler tones. "But I do not believe." And with that a great hope sprang into my mind, and--"Some day you must believe," I cried. "But now I will ask no more than Your Highness has already granted." And I drew forth from its sheath the sword His Highness had given me. "What is your meaning?" asked the Prince sternly, the frown coming dark again across his face. "They say that I came between Your Highness and great danger," I replied, with an inward prayer for the courage and the skill of words that I so sorely needed, "in recompense of which you have given me this sword. According to the word that was given with it, I now render it again," and here I knelt before him, holding out the weapon by the blade, the handle toward the Prince, "praying that my friend, Edward Royston, Captain in Your Highness's Swedish Regiment of Horse, may stand in rank, duties, and honor, as he stood before this matter did arise. And I ask, moreover, that, when there shall be an end of the present troubles, Your Highness will bring him to fitting examination and judgment, to the end that his virtue may appear to all men." "'T is a request of many heads and much length," said the Prince, with a smile of much sarcasm.