Before one of these curtains the guard halted their prisoner, while the decoy, cringing and fulsome, parted the folds and vanished within. A muffled wrath of words followed, and presently the white face of the creature reappeared, and he whispered, his breath fluttering, in the Captain’s ear. That officer grunted, and gave an order to his men:-- ‘Stand by till I call.’ He turned to Brion: ‘Now, young Sir’--and, taking him by one of his bound arms, led him into the room. The curtain closed behind them. It was no great chamber--a spacious closet might describe it--but rich beyond the wont in its appointments. There was a Turkey carpet on the floor; another, inventoried by that name, on the table--‘of crimson velvet, richly embroidered with my Lord’s posie, bears and ragged staves of clothe of goulde and silver, garnished upon the seames and aboute with goulde lace, fringed accordinglie, and lyned with crimson taffeta sarsenett.’ And on it stood a flagon of hammered gold, from which, it seemed, my Lord had just drunk. The walls were panelled, and set in their darkness like a gem was a portrait of the Queen by Zucchero. From the ceiling hung a brazen candelabrum, with many branches. The chairs were upholstered in crimson velvet, and on one of them, drawn up before the hearth, on which a fire of sea-coal burned, sat the expected figure of him whom out of all the world Brion had most wished to avoid, yet whom, it seemed, in some fateful way, he was most destined to encounter. Yet, since it was his destiny, he set his neck stiffly to it, and faced his captor with a look of proud defiance. The soldier, staying his convoy within some three yards distance of this brooding figure, put his heels together with a click and saluted. At the sound, my Lord brought his chair about, a little labouredly, and setting his hands on his thighs, looked hard and curiously into the face of the boy before him. Steady as a rock, Brion returned the gaze. ‘I will know him, now I see him,’ he thought. He was in his fiftieth year, burly, short-necked and nearly bald. His complexion was colourless; his strong eyebrows, mustachio and full spade beard were as black, whether from nature or artifice, as black ink. He had a black velvet bonnet on his head, and the suit he wore might have been the dark-man’s livery. He looked a figure cut out of jet and ivory. Under the impassivity of his expression seemed to lurk a fierce and watchful arrogance, in the wings of his aquiline nose, in the pupils of his eyes, which were more often turned towards this ear or the other than set forthright in their sockets. Like a suspicious dog he appeared to listen with eyes and ears together, while his head was held as stiff as pride. His voice came hoarse and ruttish, rumbling in his throat, when he spoke at last:-- ‘How now, boy! Are these your manners, being invited to my house to fall upon my servants and beat and maltreat them?’