The officer ordered the men to loose the prisoner and
return his sword to him; then bowed respectfully, and said:
'Please you, sir, to follow me.'
Hendon followed, saying to himself, 'An I were not travelling to
death and judgment, and so must needs economize in sin, I would
throttle this knave for his mock courtesy.'
The two traversed a populous court, and arrived at the grand
entrance of the palace, where the officer, with another bow, delivered
Hendon into the hands of a gorgeous official, who received him with
profound respect and led him forward through a great hall, lined on
both sides with rows of splendid flunkies (who made reverential
obeisance as the two passed along, but fell into death-throes of
silent laughter at our stately scarecrow the moment his back was
turned), and up a broad staircase, among flocks of fine folk, and
finally conducted him to a vast room, clove a passage for him
through the assembled nobility of England, then made a bow, reminded
him to take his hat off, and left him standing in the middle of the
room, a mark for all eyes, for plenty of indignant frowns, and for a
sufficiency of amused and derisive smiles.
Miles Hendon was entirely bewildered. There sat the young king,
under a canopy of state, five steps away, with his head bent down
and aside, speaking with a sort of human bird of paradise- a duke,
maybe; Hendon observed to himself that it was hard enough to be
sentenced to death in the full vigor of life, without having this
peculiarly public humiliation added.
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