The muffled personage signed to Tombs to retire, and as soon as the gaoler was gone and the door closed, he let fall his cloak.
“You here, Sir Thomas Seymour!” the earl exclaimed, in a stern voice. “Is it not enough that your practices and those of your brother, the Earl of Hertford, have accomplished my destruction, but you must needs come to triumph over me? It is well for you that your malice failed not in its object. Had I lived, you and your brother should both have rued the ill counsels ye have given the king.”
“Let not your anger be roused against him, my lord,” remarked the constable, but part, if you can, at peace with all men.”
“Fain would I do so, Sir John,” cried Surrey. “But let him not trouble me further.”
“You mistake my errand altogether, my lord,” said Seymour, haughtily. “It is not in my nature to triumph over a fallen foe. All enmity I have ever felt towards you is at an end. But I have something to say which it concerns you to hear. Leave us for a while, I pray you, Sir John.”
“Nothing hath interest with me now,” said Surrey; “yet go, my true friend. But let me see you once again.”
“Doubt it not,” returned the constable. And he closed the door as he quitted the cell.
“My lord,” said Seymour, “I have been your foe, but, as I just now told you, my enmity is past. Nay, if you will let me, I will prove your friend.”
“I desire to die in charity with all men,” replied Surrey, gravely, “and I freely forgive you the wrongs you have done me. But for friendship between us—never! The word accords ill with the names of Howard and Seymour.”
“Yet it might perhaps be better for both if it existed,” rejoined Sir Thomas. “Hear me, my lord. Will you not account me a friend if I rescue you from the doom that awaits you to-morrow?”
“I would not accept life at your hands, or at those of any Seymour,” returned Surrey, proudly. “Nor would I ask grace from the king himself—far less seek the intercession of one of his minions. Be assured I will make no submission to him.”
“The duke, your father, has not been so unyielding,” said Seymour. “He hath humbly sued for mercy from the king, and, as a means of moving his Highness’s compassion, hath settled his estates upon Prince Edward.”
“Whereby he has robbed you and your insatiate brother of your anticipated prey,” rejoined the earl. “Therein he did wisely. Would he had not abased himself by unworthy submission!”
“Nay, my lord, his submission was wise, for though a pardon hath not followed it—as no doubt his Grace expected—it will gain him time; and time, just now, is safety. The king cannot last long. A week, Doctor Butts declares, may see him out. Ten days is the utmost he can live.”
“You forget the statute that prohibits the foretelling of the king’s death, on penalty of death,” replied Surrey. “But no matter. I am not likely to betray you. His Majesty will outlast me, at any rate,” he added, with a bitter smile.
“If you will be ruled by me, my lord, you shall survive him many a year. I cannot offer you a pardon, but I can do that which will serve you as well. I can stay your execution. I can put it off from day to day, till what we look for shall happen—and so you shall escape the block.”
“But wherefore do you seek to save me?” demanded Surrey. “Till this moment I have deemed that my destruction was your aim. Why, at the last moment, do you thus hinder the fulfilment of your own work?”
“Listen to me, my lord, and you shall learn. Dissimulation would be idle now, and I shall not attempt it. My brother Hertford compassed your father’s destruction and your own, because he saw in you opponents dangerous to his schemes of future greatness. He will be guardian to Prince Edward, and would be Lord Protector of the realm—king in all but name.”
“I know how highly his ambition soars,” exclaimed Surrey. “Heaven shield Prince Edward, and guard him from his guardians! In losing me and my father, he will lose those who might best have counselled him and served him. But proceed, Sir Thomas. You have spoken plainly enough of Lord Hertford’s designs. What are your own? What post do you count on filling?”