This fact greatly increased Paul’s suspicions, which were quickly shared by Edward.

“We will not touch a drop of it,” he said, “although it is tempting enough this cold night.  It is either drugged or poisoned, and given us to keep us a certain prey for tonight.  Perhaps in the end it will prove our best friend; for if they think us tied by the heel, they may be less vigilant in the watch they keep upon us.”

It was not with much appetite that the comrades ate their supper, but they knew that they might need all their strength before the next hours had passed, and they ate heartily from that motive.  Their trenchers had been so liberally piled, however, that there was plenty of broken meat and bread left when they had finished, and this was first allowed to grow cold, and then packed away into one of their wallets, as it might be some considerable time before they tasted food again, save such as they had with them.

Paul made several excursions from the room to ask for this thing or that, keeping up the fiction that his comrade was sick; and each time he did so he found some person or another guarding the door—­at least watching hard by—­though apparently bent upon some private errand.  He came to the conclusion at last that their movements were most certainly spied upon, and that to attempt to escape through the house that night would be impossible.  A few cautious words (which he caught as he entered the room where the peddler and his companions were sitting) confirmed his impression that Edward was certainly suspected, if not actually identified, and that he would not be allowed to pass out of sight until suspicion was either verified or laid at rest.  He fancied, from the few words he heard, that these men were awaiting a companion who would be able absolutely to identify the prince, if it were really he, and that meantime they did not intend that either of the youths should escape their surveillance.

It was with a sinking heart that Paul returned to Edward with this news.  But peril seemed only to act like a tonic upon the nerves of the younger lad; and springing to his feet with energy and resolution, he cried with flashing eyes: 

“And so they think to make a prisoner of the eaglet of England’s royal house!  Let them try.  Let them do their worst.  They shall see that his wings are strong enough for a higher and more daring flight than they dream of; that he will not be fettered by a cage of their treacherous making!  Paul, it is not for nothing that I have lain awake long nights dreaming dreams of peril and escape.  I know how we will outwit our pursuers this very night.  Say, can yon swim, as you can do all else that a brave Englishman should?”

“Like a fish,” answered Paul, who had many a time terrified and astonished his mother by his feats in the salmon pool at home, and had never lost the skill and strength to battle with wind or wave.

“Good!  I was sure of it; and I can do the same.  Paul, come here to the window.  See you no means of escape as you look down into that dark, sullen water below?”