elf; and seeing that no lives were
lost, his first impulse was that of ungovernable rage.

"Foul traitor!" he exclaimed, "was it for this that thou hast pretended
to beguile us with thy damnable sorceries? Seize him! Away to the Tower
Hill! and let the priest patter an ave while the doomsman knots the
rope."

Not a hand stirred; even Catesby would as lief have touched the king's
lion before meals, as that poor mechanician, standing aghast, and
unheeding all, beside his mutilated engine.

"Master Nevile," said the king, sternly, "dost thou hear us?

"Verily," muttered the Nevile, approaching very slowly, "I knew what
would happen; but to lay hands on my host, an' he were fifty times a
wizard--No! My liege," he said in a firm tone, but falling on his
knee, and his gallant countenance pale with generous terror, "my liege,
forgive me. This man succoured me when struck down and wounded by
a Lancastrian ruffian; this man gave me shelter, food, and healing.
Command me not, O gracious my lord, to aid in taking the life of one to
whom I owe my own."

"His life!" exclaimed the Duchess of Bedford,--"the life of this most
illustrious person! Sire, you do not dream it!"

"Heh! by the saints, what now?" cried the king, whose choler, though
fierce and ruthless, was as short-lived as the passions of the indolent
usually are, and whom the earnest interposition of his mother-in-law
much surprised and diverted. "If, fair belle-mere, thou thinkest it so
illustrious a deed to frighten us out of our mortal senses, and narrowly
to 'scape sending us across the river like a bevy of balls from a
bombard, there is no disputing of tastes. Rise up, Master Nevile,
we esteem thee not less for thy boldness; ever be the host and the
benefactor revered by English gentlemen and Christian youth. Master
Warner may go free."

Here Warner uttered so deep and hollow a groan, that it startled all
present.

"Twenty-five years of labour, and not to have seen this!" he ejaculated.
"Twenty and five years, and all wasted! How repair this disaster? O
fatal day!"

"What says he? What means he?" said Jacquetta.

"Come home!--home!" said Marmaduke, approaching the philosopher, in
great alarm lest he should once more jeopardize his life. But Adam,
shaking him off, began eagerly, and with tremulous hands, to examine the
machine, and not perceiving any mode by which to guard in future against
a danger that he saw at once would, if not removed, render his inve