ckly
shared by Edward.

"We will not touch a drop of it," he said, "although it is tempting
enough this cold night. It is either drugged or poisoned, and given
us to keep us a certain prey for tonight. Perhaps in the end it
will prove our best friend; for if they think us tied by the heel,
they may be less vigilant in the watch they keep upon us."

It was not with much appetite that the comrades ate their supper,
but they knew that they might need all their strength before the
next hours had passed, and they ate heartily from that motive.
Their trenchers had been so liberally piled, however, that there
was plenty of broken meat and bread left when they had finished,
and this was first allowed to grow cold, and then packed away into
one of their wallets, as it might be some considerable time before
they tasted food again, save such as they had with them.

Paul made several excursions from the room to ask for this thing or
that, keeping up the fiction that his comrade was sick; and each
time he did so he found some person or another guarding the
door--at least watching hard by--though apparently bent upon some
private errand. He came to the conclusion at last that their
movements were most certainly spied upon, and that to attempt to
escape through the house that night would be impossible. A few
cautious words (which he caught as he entered the room where the
peddler and his companions were sitting) confirmed his impression
that Edward was certainly suspected, if not actually identified,
and that he would not be allowed to pass out of sight until
suspicion was either verified or laid at rest. He fancied, from the
few words he heard, that these men were awaiting a companion who
would be able absolutely to identify the prince, if it were really
he, and that meantime they did not intend that either of the youths
should escape their surveillance.

It was with a sinking heart that Paul returned to Edward with this
news. But peril seemed only to act like a tonic upon the nerves of
the younger lad; and springing to his feet with energy and
resolution, he cried with flashing eyes:

"And so they think to make a prisoner of the eaglet of England's
royal house! Let them try. Let them do their worst. They shall see
that his wings are strong enough for a higher and more daring
flight than they dream of; that he will not be fettered by a cage
of their treacherous making! Paul, it is not for nothing that I
have lain awake long n