“Think of me what you please, and say what you will—­you shall not anger me,” rejoined the promoter.  “I discovered your flight from the place of refuge I had procured for you, and guessing where you had come, followed you hither.  Your danger is not past.  Vainly will you seek Sir Francis Mitchell.  You will not find him,—­but you will find a serjeant-at-arms with a Star-Chamber warrant for your arrest.  To this you can offer no resistance; and what will follow?  I will tell you:—­immediate incarceration in the Fleet Prison.  And when safely lodged there, how, may I ask, are you to liberate Aveline?”

“I must trust to chance,” replied Sir Jocelyn.  “I can no longer place any reliance upon you.  Stand aside, and let me pass.  I would not harm you.”

“You cannot injure one whose intentions are friendly to you as mine are.  Listen to me, and let what I have to say sink deeply into your breast.  Do anything rather than render yourself amenable to the accursed tribunal I have named.  Abandon mistress, friend, relative—­all who are near and dear to you—­if they would bring you within its grasp.”

“And do you venture to give me this shameful council?  Do you think I will attend to it?” cried Sir Jocelyn.

“I am sure you will, if you hear me out—­and you shall hear me,” the promoter exclaimed with so much authority that the young man, however impatient, could not refuse attention, to him.  “Look me in the face, Sir Jocelyn!  Regard me well!  Behold these ineffaceable marks made by the heated iron, and the sharpened knife!  How came they there?  From a sentence of the Star-Chamber.  And as my offence was the same as yours, so your sentence will correspond with mine.  Your punishment will be the same as mine—­branding and mutilation.  Ha!  I perceive I have touched you now.”

“What was your offence, unhappy man?” asked Sir Jocelyn, averting his gaze from the hideous aspect which, now lighted up with mingled emotions of rage and despair, had become absolutely appalling.

“The same as your own, as I have said,” replied the other;—­“a few hasty words impugning the justice of this vindictive court.  Better had I have cut out my tongue than have given utterance to them.  But my case more nearly resembled yours than I have yet explained, for, like you, I had incurred the displeasure of Sir Giles Mompesson, and was by him delivered to these hellish tormentors.  Acting under cover of the Star-Chamber, and in pursuance of its iniquitous decrees, he nailed me to the pillory, and so fast, that the ears through which the spikes were driven were left behind.  Think how you would like that, Sir Jocelyn?  Think what you would feel, if you stood there on that infamous post, a spectacle to the base and shouting rabble, with a paper fastened to your breast, setting forth your crimes, and acquainting all that you were a Star-Chamber delinquent?”

“Enough, Sir,” interrupted Sir Jocelyn.