"I demand to see the prince, to whom I shall speak my mind," reiterated Walter, still more curtly.
"You shall see the inside of a prison in a few moments," returned Barra, with vicious emphasis. But ere he could summon an officer the inner door opened, and there entered a dark, thin, sallow-faced man, with brilliant, hollow-set eyes, who walked with his head a little forward, as if he had gone all his life in haste.
It was the Prince of Orange himself, dressed in his general's uniform, but without decorations or orders of any kind.
Barra rose at his entrance and remained standing.
"Pray sit down," said the prince to him, "and proceed with your conversation with these gentlemen of your country."
"I was about," said Barra, deferentially, "to commit to prison this soldier of the Douglas Dragoon regiment for a most insolent slander concerning myself, and also for collecting information as to the condition of our forces with intent to communicate it to the enemy. There is, indeed, an officer of the King of France with the man at this very moment, but in disguise."
The prince turned his bright keen eyes upon Wat and Scarlett in turn.
"And you, sir! what have you to say?" he asked, quietly.
Whereupon, nothing daunted, Wat told his plain tale, and showed the order which he had received from Sergeant Davie Dunbar, signed with Barra's name.
"I never wrote the order, and never heard of it," said Barra, who stood, calmly contemptuous, at the prince's elbow.
"Call Sergeant David Dunbar!" ordered the prince.
It was a few minutes before that stanch soldier arrived. In the mean time, the prince turned his attention to Scarlett.
"You are an officer of the King of France?" he said, with an ominous gleam in his eye as he spoke of his arch-enemy.
"I had that honor," replied Scarlett, "till early this morning, when it was my fortune to help this ancient friend of mine out of a difficulty into which I had led him. Moreover, being a gentleman, I could not remain in such a service nor serve with subordinates who knew not the sacredness of a soldier's pledge. I am, therefore, once more a free man, and my sword is at the disposal of any honorable prince who will accept of it."
"You were a celebrated master-of-arms in Scotland, were you not?" asked the prince.
"If your highness is good enough to say so," said Scarlett, bowing. "And also in France, the first in estimation in the army of the Prince of Condé."
"And you understand the drilling and mustering of raw levies?" asked the Prince of Orange, with some eagerness in his tone.
"There are a dozen regiments in the French service at this moment who are exceedingly well aware of that, your highness," replied John Scarlett, with a somewhat peculiar smile.
"Come to me this day week at the camp," said the prince, abruptly, after remaining a moment in deep thought.
"Sergeant David Dunbar!" announced an officer of the prince's retinue.
And in a moment that sturdy Scot stood before the stadtholder exceedingly flustered by his sudden summons, and cudgelling his brains to think why he should be sent for so early in the day by his general.
"You took an order the night before last to this gentleman's quarters?" said the prince. "From whom did you receive that order, and what speed did you make with your mission?"
"I received the letter from one whom I knew as a servant of my Lord of Barra one Haxo, a butcher in the camp. 'Make haste,' he bade me, 'this is from my lord to the Scot who dwells in the street of Zaandpoort, the dragoon called Walter Gordon of Lochinvar, serving in Douglas's regiment.' So I went there willingly enough, and eke with speed, the more by token that I knew Wat Gordon and his cousin well, as also Will Gordon's wife, who is a wise, sober-like lass of Galloway, and can cook most excellent suppers."
"That will serve,
sergeant," said William of Orange. "There is some mistake or double-dealing here which I shall doubtless discover in good time. Come to me both together at the camp this day week at the hour of noon, and I will have further conference with you in my tent. You are at liberty to join your regiment, and take your friend with you."
Thereupon Walter went to the prince, and, bending on his knee, presented him with the despatches which, in the inn of Brederode, he had guarded with his life.
The prince took them without a word of thanks or commendation, and thrust them into the breast of his coat as carelessly as though they had been so much waste paper.
For the soldier-prince, who had never known fear in his life, took courage in others as a matter of course.
And so my Lord Barra was left alone in the office of the provost-marshal, looking blackly across his table after Wat and Scarlett as they followed the prince from the room.
CHAPTER VII MISTRESS MAISIE LENNOX, DIPLOMATIST
"I declare," he cried, "my throat is parched like an Edinburgh ash-backet on these accursed roads. Let us go to a change-house and slake our thrapples with a draught of Hollands and water. 'Tis the poor best that the country affords."