en
both towards the gardens and the square. Colonel Esmond heard through the
closed door the voice of the watchman calling the hour, in the square on
the other side. He opened the door communicating with the prince's room;
Martin, the servant that had rode with Beatrix to Hounslow, was just going
out of the chamber as Esmond entered it, and when the fellow was gone, and
the watchman again sang his cry of "Past ten o'clock, and a starlight
night," Esmond spoke to the prince in a low voice, and said--"Your royal
highness hears that man?"

"_Apres, monsieur?_" says the prince.

"I have but to beckon him from the window, and send him fifty yards, and
he returns with a guard of men, and I deliver up to him the body of the
person calling himself James the Third, for whose capture Parliament hath
offered a reward of 5,000_l._, as your royal highness saw on our ride from
Rochester. I have but to say the word, and, by the Heaven that made me, I
would say it if I thought the prince, for his honour's sake, would not
desist from insulting ours. But the first gentleman of England knows his
duty too well to forget himself with the humblest, or peril his crown for
a deed that were shameful if it were done."

"Has your lordship anything to say," says the prince, turning to Frank
Castlewood, and quite pale with anger; "any threat or any insult, with
which you would like to end this agreeable night's entertainment?"

"I follow the head of our house," says Castlewood, bowing gravely. "At
what time shall it please the prince that we should wait upon him in the
morning?"

"You will wait on the Bishop of Rochester early, you will bid him bring
his coach hither; and prepare an apartment for me in his own house, or in
a place of safety. The king will reward you handsomely, never fear, for
all you have done in his behalf. I wish you a good night, and shall go to
bed, unless it pleases the Marquis of Esmond to call his colleague, the
watchman, and that I should pass the night with the Kensington guard. Fare
you well, be sure I will remember you. My Lord Castlewood, I can go to bed
to-night without need of a chamberlain." And the prince dismissed us with
a grim bow, locking one door as he spoke, that into the supping-room, and
the other through which we passed, after us. It led into the small chamber
which Frank Castlewood or _Monsieur Baptiste_ occupied, and by which
Martin entered when Colonel Esmond but now saw him in the chamber.

At an