"The course of justice must not be delayed, although it be the Sabbath," said the Protector; and, having hastily ascertained that his officer had arrived at Cecil Place in time to prevent the intended marriage, he immediately ordered that Colonel Jones and Sir Willmott Burrell should be at once ushered into his presence. At the same time he despatched one of his pages to command the attendance of Manasseh Ben Israel.

When the knight entered, he was received by Cromwell with his usual show of courtesy. He appeared, however, with a downcast look, his hands folded over his bosom, and his mind made up to the approaching contest with one whom he well knew to be as profound and accomplished a dissimulator as himself, when dissimulation was the weapon wherewith he designed to fight.

Sir Willmott briefly apologised for his travel-worn and soiled habiliments, and displayed a due portion of surprise and indignation at being torn from his bride in the midst of the marriage ceremony. The Jew trembled with agitation, and would have interrupted the Protector's more slow, but not less sure, proceedings, had he not been prevented by a timely check from Cromwell, who bent his brow towards him with a peculiar and warning expression.

"It cannot be supposed, Sir Willmott," he observed, in a calm, and even friendly tone, "but that I regret exceedingly being compelled to trouble you in this manner, and at such a time. You will be made aware that I have been called upon to perform a double duty; first, to my worthy and excellent friend Manasseh Ben Israel, with the nature of whose suspicions (it maketh a Christian soul shudder to think upon it) you are already acquainted—and next, to the lady who was about to become your wife. Her Highness has long and truly loved her; and she is, moreover, somewhat related (although only after the Episcopalian fashion) to my most beloved daughter. I was, therefore, bound to have especial care concerning the maiden's bridal."

"The Lady Frances Cromwell could have informed your Highness that Mistress Constantia was, of her own free will, a party to the ceremony."

"I do not dispute it. Now our business is to satisfy the mind of our friend here, as to your alleged conduct towards his only child. It is a noble matter in our laws, and one that we may well be proud of, that, by God's blessing, every man is considered innocent until he be proven guilty. The Lord forbid that I should lay aught of sin unto your charge!—you, who have appeared at all times a sure and a safe prop unto our Commonwealth. Doubtless you saw the lady—Zillah: say you not, worthy Rabbi, that the maiden's name was Zillah?"

"Even so," replied the Jew, with a bitter sigh; "she was named after her mother."

"You, doubtless, saw her, and, struck by her beauty, which we hear was most marvellous, paid her more courtesy than was quite fitting in a betrothed man. But Satan lays many snares for the unwary, and beauty is a peril that few men altogether escape. Verily, it is of the evil one. But there are excuses; at least there may be excuses, especially in such a land as France, where temptation assumes every seducing form; and a young woman, like this lady, might have been easily led to believe your courtliness to be that of the heart, whereas it was only that of the manner."

The rabbi stood aghast, his friend Cromwell talked in a tone so much more moderate than he had expected—he knew not what to think. Even Burrell, who had anticipated a thunder-storm, was deceived by the calm; and, after considering a moment that the Protector would not speak thus if he had really received any communication from Hugh Dalton, replied, breathing freely for the first time since he received the mandate to appear at Hampton Court,—

"It is possible she might have been led to such belief, though, as I have before assured her father, I had no intention so to mislead his daughter. It is very hard to be suspected of a crime so base; and——"

"But innocence wears a robe of such pure light," interrupted the Protector, "that it will shine in the darkest night, as yours will, if you are innocent. Know you how the fair Jewess became possessed of this picture? Nay, I should hesitate to think harshly of you, even if you had given it to her, which you might have done in pure friendliness, although the world—it is a harsh and ill-judging world—might condemn you on such ground. But we have ourselves suffered so much from its wrong judgment, as to have learned mercy towards others. Friendship, excellent, right, true friendship, may exist between man and woman in our advanced—ay, and in our young years. Why should it not? Or, as the picture is of excellent painting, and the young lady, it would seem, desired accomplishment in that useless art, you might have lent it her as a study—or——"

"I certainly did not give it," replied Burrell; "but I have some idea of having lent it, with sundry Flemish drawings. Your Highness may remember that several gentlemen, attached to the embassy at Paris, came away hastily. I was one of those."

Hereupon the Rabbi would have spoken, for he remembered how Sir Willmott had told him that the picture was not his; but the Protector again stayed him, seeking to entangle Burrell in a web of his own weaving.

"You visited the lady frequently?"

"Not very frequently. I told Manasseh Ben Israel, when first he injured me by this most unjust suspicion, that I did not often see her, and when I did, it was to ascertain if there were any letters she desired to transmit to England."

"Not from the carnal desire of paying her homage?"

"How could your Highness suppose it was?"

"You but now confessed she might so have interpreted your civilities. But—know you aught of one Hugh Dalton, a free-trader?"

"Know—know—know, your Highness? I know him for a most keen villain!" replied the Master of Burrell warmly.

"Indeed!—But you scorned not to employ him."

Burrell was silent; for, though he had journeyed full fifty miles, he had not been able to form any plan of defence, if Cromwell should really be aware of the arrangements entered into in the cavern of the Gull's Nest Crag. Such he now dreaded was the fact, not only from the appearance of a paper the Protector drew forth, but from the fact that the seeming calmness was fading from his brow. All that remained was stoutly to deny its being in his hand-writing: it was a case that finesse could in no way serve.

"Did your Highness mean that I employed this man?" he said at last, with a clever mingling of astonishment and innocence in his voice and manner.

During a brief pause that followed, the eye of Cromwell was, as it were, nailed upon his countenance.

"I do mean, Sir Willmott Burrell, that you scorned not to employ this man. Know you this hand-writing?"

Sir Willmott's worst fears were confirmed.

"Permit me," he said, glancing over the document; then, looking from it with most marvellous coolness, he raised his eyes, exclaiming, "Sir, there is a plot for my destruction! This hand-writing is so well feigned, that I could have sworn it my own, had I not known the total impossibility that it could so be!"

"I have seen your hand-writing before:—write now, sir."

Burrell obeyed—took the pen in his hand, and Cromwell noted that it trembled much.

"Sir Willmott, I believe you in general place your paper straight?"

"Please your Highness, I do; but I am not cool—not collected enough to act as calmly as at my own table. The knowledge in whose presence I sit, might agitate stronger nerves than mine. Behold, sir, the villain counterfeited well; the W is exact, even in the small hair-stroke—the tt's are crossed at the same distance, and the ll's are of the height of mine:—a most villanous, but most excellent counterfeit!"

"Which?" inquired the Protector: "which mean ye is the counterfeit—the writing or the writer?——Without there!—Call in Robin Hays. Sir Willmott Burrell, Sir Willmott Burrell! the Lord deliver me from such as thou art!" he continued, swelling and chafing himself into anger, 'pricking the sides of his intent,' that so he might overwhelm the dastard knight. "We doubted, sir, at first, but we doubt no longer. Sir, you have robbed that old man of his daughter! You have, by so doing, perjured your own soul, and brought most foul dishonour upon England. I once heard you talk of patriotism: a true patriot loves his country too well to commit a dishonourable action! Sir, I have learned that you were married to the Jewish girl."

"Please your Highness," interrupted Manasseh at length, "I do not wish the marriage: if there be, as we suppose, a marriage, I wish it not kept; I only want my wretched and deluded child."

"Your pardon, good Rabbi. I am protector of the rights, and not the fantasies, of those who inhabit England, and I hold no sinecure. You may well turn pale, Master of Burrell!—O Lord! that such should dwell in the tents of Judah!—that such should remain sound in life and limb, blessed with carnal and fleshly comforts!—that such reptiles should crawl among us—be fed by the same food, warmed by the same sun, as just men! No, no, Manasseh; if there has been a marriage, as sure as the Almighty governs heaven, it shall be kept! Nay, Sir Willmott Burrell, never dare to knit your brows. Justice, sir, justice to the uttermost, is what I desire in this country! Dost remember the fate of Don Pantaleon Sa, the Portugal ambassador's brother—a knight of Malta, and a person eminent in many great actions? Dost remember him, I say—that he died the death of a murderer, according to the Scripture, 'he that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Justice shall be satisfied!—Not that I seek to confound you without a hearing. But here comes one, once a retainer of your own, who can point out where the lady is."

Robin Hays, little conscious of the fate that had befallen Barbara, entered with much alacrity, for he was glad of anything that afforded him change of place.

"What, Robin Hays!" said Burrell. "Methinks your Highness has assembled most creditable witnesses against me—a Jew, and a thing like that!"

"No sneering, sir. This person asserts that Zillah Ben Israel came over in the Fire-fly."

"Ah! with Hugh Dalton," said Sir Willmott, thrown off his guard at what he conceived the Skipper's utter faithlessness; then muttering, "I thought——"

"No matter what. Methinks this confirms the document you denied," observed the Protector, whose rage had somewhat subsided. "No, not with Hugh Dalton, as you imagine, Sir Willmott, but with a man of the name of Jeromio, an Italian. The description answers in every respect—the dark eye, the black hair, the sallow aspect—all."

"Indeed!" said Colonel Jones, who had been present during the examination, leaning against one of the window-frames, and taking much note of all that passed. "Indeed! then doth the Lord work marvellously, and wonderful is his name! for it was to all appearance a foreign woman, or rather fiend—one with a pale cheek and jetty locks, who interrupted the bridal at Cecil Place, and slew the fair young maid that waited on Mistress Cecil!"

"Why told ye not this before?" inquired Cromwell hastily, while the Rabbi advanced towards the soldier with great eagerness as the Protector spoke. But there was another whose blood ran icy cold as the words of Colonel Jones were uttered. He stood for a moment as if suddenly smitten with some cruel malady, the next touch of which would be death; then he pushed boldly past Sir Willmott, and grasping the soldier's arm, said in a broken husky voice, "In God's name, who was slain?"

"A modest-looking maid, whom they called Barbara,—yes, Barbara was the name."

Robin spoke not again, nor did he move from the Colonel's side, though his hand relaxed its grasp: he stood and looked like a creature to whom the grave had refused rest—a being whose breath and blood were frozen and congealed, at the moment when life and its energies were most needed; strong passion, powerful feeling were upon his countenance, and remained there as if the spell of some magician had converted him to stone. The effect which this scene produced upon the Protector was evidence that he had a heart where the milk of human kindness flowed, and must once have flowed abundantly, however circumstances might have chilled its generous source. Deeply anxious as he was as to the result of the investigation, running full tilt at the difficulty he encountered, having the means of overwhelming the Master of Burrell within his reach, he suffered the Jew to continue a series of questions to Colonel Jones, while he spoke to Robin—soothing and caressing him as a father would have soothed and caressed an afflicted child. But this unbending of his sterner nature was lost upon the unhappy Ranger; he could not have replied if he would; all his faculties were suspended, and he remained in silence and without motion, unconscious of the Protector's condescending kindness.

"'Tis ever thus," ejaculated Oliver, looking upon the sad figure now by his side. "'Tis ever thus; there never was a noble heart but the blight fell on it; doubtless he loved the maid: the Lord be with us! He is seized—pray the Almighty not for death." He struck his dagger on a hand-bell that lay upon the table, ordered that his own surgeon should attend Robin with all due speed, and then walked kindly by his side to the opened door, where he delivered him to a favourite attendant. Those in the ante-room who had witnessed Cromwell's gentleness to Robin Hays were profuse in their offers of assistance to one, whom, but a little while before, they had jested at and insulted. Courtiers are as ripe in republics as in king-governed countries. Your sycophants bow to the power, and not to the person. Dress but a dog in royal robes, and call him Emperor—Protector—King, and thousands will rejoice loudly if he but wag his tail.

Cromwell returned to his investigation, and interspersed his questionings with much bitterness of remark—the more so as he feared his chain of evidence was in some degree incomplete, although no moral doubt could remain on the mind of any person as to the Master of Burrell's guilt. Colonel Jones failed not to show how anxious Sir Willmott had been that Zillah should escape, and the Rabbi's agitation bordered on madness when he contemplated the new crime into which his wretched daughter had been led.

"Brand me as you please; think of me in your good judgment as you will. I am a free man; free to go as to come; and as your Highness cannot detain me on legal grounds, I am at liberty to depart."

Sir Willmott had scarcely finished the sentence, when Gracious Meanwell, having first knocked, and received permission to enter, advanced with a small and peculiar-looking packet in his hand; it was composed of slips of parchment, and the direction was in printed, not written letters.

"I crave your Highness's pardon; but a sailor-like lad brought this to the great gate, and would take no denial, but that it should be given immediately to your Highness, saying that he found it hanging in some out-o'-the way place, betwixt heaven and earth, far off in the Isle of Shepey, and seeing that it was directed to your Highness, he came straightway to deliver it; he prevailed on the porters to forward it up, which they did, knowing that your Highness wishes nothing of the sort to be kept back."

While Meanwell spoke, Cromwell was undoing or rather tearing open the parcel; and the man was about to withdraw with all the court observance which the Protector would not lack.

"The manifestation of the Lord! The manifestation of his righteous judgments! His ways are clear in Israel, and mighty is his name!—Look here, Colonel Jones; my worthy friend Manasseh Ben Israel, behold! Is it not wonderful! Gracious Meanwell, see that the bearer of this be well cared for, but safely kept. We will speak with him ourselves. Of a truth it is wonderful!"

Such were the words of Cromwell as he scanned, with a rapid but scrutinising glance, each of the several papers contained in the parcel;—first, a certificate of marriage between Sir Willmott Burrell and Zillah Ben Israel, as performed by one Samuel Verdaie a monk residing at the Benedictine Friary in the "Faubourg St. Antoine," at Paris—next, many letters from the said Sir Willmott Burrell to the Jewess—and lastly, a love document given before their marriage, wherein he pledged himself to marry Zillah, and to use his influence with Cromwell (whom he facetiously termed vieux garÇon), to induce her father to pardon the undutiful step she was about to take.

"This is also a counterfeit, Sir Willmott, I presume," continued the Protector, pointing to the document; "nor is this in your hand-writing—nor this—and this is not your seal—and there is no such person as Samuel Verdaie—nor such place as the Benedictine Friary, or Paris, I suppose? What! have you lost the power of speech? Shame! shame! shame! and the curse of shame fall upon you! It is such men as you—such crimes as yours, that bring disgrace upon England. Sad will be the day for her, when she sinks in the estimation of the world as a moral nation. Behold her, a small speck in the immensity of the globe; yet great is her name among the kingdoms of the earth! A Briton carries, or ought to carry, ten times the influence of any other man, because our power is over the mind, over the respect, over the veneration of mankind. Go to, sir, you are no Englishman! Behold, how ill prosper your evil contrivances! Sir, I say again, you have robbed that old man of his daughter.—What say you?"

"It was to spare that old man's feelings I denied the act," said Sir Willmott, again rallying, yet wanting the courage that forms a respectable villain; "it was to spare him. But the marriage is nought! a Popish priest, a Protestant gentleman, and a Jewess! I knew not your Highness would sanction such unholy rites. Besides, despite all this, the Lady Constantia will wed me yet."

"By the holy heavens, she shall not!" exclaimed Cromwell, forgetting the Puritan Protector in the soldier, the soberness of the age in the energy of the moment; then as suddenly adding, "The Lord forgive me! the Lord blot out mine iniquities! See what it is to have to do with sinners!"

"Shall not!" repeated Burrell, who was as much of the bully as the coward, and still trusted his cause to the knowledge of Constantia's filial affection, and her readiness to sacrifice all for her father; "let the lady decide."

"So be it; though I hardly think it—there must be some hidden motive. Yet no, Sir Willmott Burrell, I will not,—even if she will, I will it otherwise. Ah! think ye to control me? Didst ever hear of one Cony? or of Maynard Twisden, and Wyndham, his counsel? What if I imprison ye, Sir Willmott, till this Jewess be found, and compel ye to wed her again, even here in England! What say ye now?"

"Would you have me wed a murderess?" inquired the villain, in a calm tone.

"My child is not that," said the heart-broken father, who had been examining the papers, with overpowering anxiety.

"What! good Manasseh?" inquired Cromwell.

"That which he did call her," replied the Jew.

"There needs no farther parley. Colonel Jones, we will ourself accompany our worthy friend to the Isle of Shepey, and investigate more minutely this most unhappy business. You will take all requisite care of Sir Willmott Burrell, who goes with us—willing or unwilling—Perhaps he would like to appeal from our decree? To-night we will set forth, so as to arrive at King's-ferry before to-morrow's sunset; for we must stay an hour at Whitehall, and say a word in passing to Colonel Lilburne, at Eltham."

"How does your Highness travel?"

"As befits our state," replied the Protector. "Worthy Rabbi, be not cast down; all may yet be well."

"Your Highness is ever kind; but justice is inflexible. My child!—that which he called my child, rings in mine ear—pierces it! O Father Abraham! I knew not the curse that fell upon Israel until this day!"

"All may yet be well, I say again," observed the Protector, "know ye not what was said by the prophet of old—the prophet of the Lord—'Now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not!'"

"May I return and commune with your Highness?" craved Colonel Jones, as he escorted Burrell to the door—"there is much that I would mention, although this is the Lord's day."

"Ay, certainly.—Gracious Meanwell! I would speak with him who brought this parcel."

A lad was introduced; but he could tell nothing, except that passing along the crags of the Gull's Nest, (the Protector started at the name,) he saw the packet dangling in the air; he pulled at it, and it came easily away in his hand; and finding it directed to his Highness, he had been recommended to bring it forthwith—that he had ridden part of the way in company with some who were coming as far as Gravesend, and had 'lifted' him. He looked like what he was, part oyster-dredger, part smuggler. Cromwell saw nothing in him that would justify detention, and dismissed him with a liberal gratuity.

"We shall solve the mysteries of this Gull's Nest Crag before we leave the island," thought the Protector, and then proceeded to the almost hopeless task of comforting the humbled and afflicted "Master in Israel."