It was supper-time.Eli's family were collected round the board;Margaret only was missing.To Catherine's surprise, Eli said he would wait a bit for her.
"Why, I told her you would not wait for the duke,""She is not the duke; she is a poor, good lass, that hath waited not minutes, but years, for a graceless son of mine.You can put the meat on the board all the same; then we can fall to, without farther loss o' time, when she does come."The smoking dishes smelt so savoury that Eli gave way."She will come if we begin," said he; "they always do, Come, sit ye down, Mistress Joan; y'are not here for a slave, I trow, but a guest.
There, I hear a quick step off covers, and fall to."The covers were withdrawn, and the knives brandished.
Then burst into the room, not the expected Margaret, but a Dominican friar, livid with rage.
He was at the table in a moment, in front of Cornelis and Sybrandt, threw his tall body over the narrow table, and with two hands hovering above their shrinking heads, like eagles over a quarry, he cursed them by name, soul and body, in this world and the next.It was an age eloquent in curses; and this curse was so full, so minute, so blighting, blasting, withering, and tremendous, that I am afraid to put all the words on paper.
"Cursed be the lips," he shrieked, "which spoke the lie that Margaret was dead; may they rot before the grave, and kiss white-hot iron in hell thereafter; doubly cursed be the hands that changed those letters, and be they struck off by the hangman's knife, and handle hell fire for ever; thrice accursed be the cruel hearts that did conceive that damned lie, to part true love for ever; may they sicken and wither on earth joyless, loveless, hopeless; and wither to dust before their time; and burn in eternal fire," He cursed the meat at their mouths and every atom of their bodies, from their hair to the soles of their feet.Then turning from the cowering, shuddering pair, who had almost hid themselves beneath the table, he tore a letter out of his bosom, and flung it down before his father.
"Read that, thou hard old man, that didst imprison thy son, read, and see what monsters thou hast brought into the world, The memory of my wrongs and hers dwell with you all for ever! I will meet you again at the judgment day; on earth ye will never see me more."And in a moment, as he had come, so he was gone, leaving them stiff, and cold, and white as statues round the smoking board.
And this was the sight that greeted Margaret's eyes and Jorian's -pale figures of men and women petrified around the untasted food, as Eastern poets feigned.
Margaret glanced her eye round, and gasped out, "Oh, joy! all here; no blood hath been shed.Oh, you cruel, cruel men! I thank God he hath not slain you,"At sight of her Catherine gave an eloquent scream; then turned her head away.But Eli, who had just cast his eye over the false letter, and begun to understand it all, seeing the other victim come in at that very moment with her wrongs reflected in her sweet, pale face, started to his feet in a transport of rage, and shouted, "Stand clear, and let me get at the traitors, I'll hang for them," And in a moment he whipped out his short sword, and fell upon them.
"Fly!" screamed Margaret."Fly!"
They slipped howling under the table, and crawled out the other side.
