“If your excellency will condescend to make further inquiries you will find I have spoken the truth,” rejoined the dwarf. “But I pray you not to implicate me with the queen. Her majesty, like many of her sex, has changed her mind, that is all. And she may change it again for aught I know.”
“It is a strange and improbable story,” muttered Renard; “yet I am puzzled what to think of it.”
“It was no paltry hope of gain that induced me to act in the matter,” pursued Xit; “but, as I have before intimated, a promise of being knighted.”
“If I find, on inquiry, you have spoken the truth,” rejoined Renard, “and you will serve me faithfully on any secret service on which I may employ you, I will answer for it you shall attain the dignity you aspire to.”
“I will do whatever your excellency desires,” returned Xit, eagerly. “I shall be knighted by somebody, after all.”
“But if you have deceived me,” continued Renard, sternly, “every bone in your body shall be broken upon that wheel. Your examination is at an end.” With this, he clapped his hands together, and at the signal the attendants returned.
“Am I to remain in these irons longer?” inquired Xit.
“No,” replied Renard. “Release him, and take him hence. I shall interrogate him at the same hour to-morrow night.”
“I pray your excellency to desire these officials to treat me with the respect due to a person of my anticipated dignity,” cried Xit, as he was unceremoniously seized and thrown on his back by Wolfytt; “and above all, command them to furnish me with provisions. I have tasted nothing to-night.”
Renard signified a wish that the latter request should be complied with, and the dwarf’s irons being by this time removed, he was led back, by the road he came, to his chamber in the Constable Tower, where some provisions and a flask of wine were placed before him, and he was left alone.
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CHAPTER XXIV
HOW XIT ESCAPED FROM THE CONSTABLE TOWER; AND
HOW HE FOUND CICELY
WHILE satisfying his appetite, Xit could not help reflecting upon the probable consequences of the ridiculous statement he had made to Renard, and the idea of the anger of the ambassador when he discovered the deception practised upon him, occasioned him much internal trepidation. It did not, however, prevent him from doing full justice to the viands before him, nor from draining to the last drop the contents of the flask. Inspired by the potent liquid, he laughed at his former fears, sprang upon the bench, and committed a hundred other antics and extravagancies. But as the fumes of the wine evaporated, his valour declined; until, like Acres’s, it fairly “oozed out at his fingers’ ends.”
He then began to consider whether it might not be possible to escape. With this view, he examined the embrasures, but they were grated, and defied his efforts to pass through. He next tried the door, and to his great surprise found it unfastened; having, most probably, been left open intentionally by Wolfytt. As may be supposed, Xit did not hesitate to avail himself of the chance thus unexpectedly offered him. Issuing forth, he hurried up a small spiral stone staircase, which brought him to the entrance of the upper chamber. The door was ajar, and peeping cautiously through it, he perceived Nightgall and Wolfytt, both asleep; the former reclining with his face on the table, which was covered with fragments of meat and bread, goblets, and a large pot of wine; and the latter, extended at full length, on the floor. It was evident, from their heavy breathing and disordered attire, they had been drinking deeply.
Stepping cautiously into the chamber, which in size and form exactly corresponded with that below, Xit approached the sleepers. A bunch of keys hung at Nightgall’s girdle—the very bunch he had taken once before—and the temptation to possess himself of them was irresistible. Creeping up to the jailer, and drawing the poniard suspended at his right side from out its sheath, he began to sever his girdle. While he was thus occupied, the keys slightly jingled, and Nightgall, half-awakened by the sound, put his hand to his belt. Finding all safe, as he imagined, he disposed himself to slumber again, while Xit, who had darted under the table at the first alarm, as soon as he thought it prudent, recommenced his task, and the keys were once more in his possession.