CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE IN WHICH THE CLOUDS THAT COVER THE CATASTROPHE BEGIN TO DISPERSE.
We must now leave Captain Crowe and his nephew Mr. Clarke, arguing with great vehemence about the fatal intelligence obtained from the conjurer, and penetrate at once the veil that concealed our hero. Know then, reader, that Sir Launcelot Greaves, repairing to the place described in the billet which he had received, was accosted by a person muffled in a cloak, who began to amuse him with a feigned story of Aurelia, to which, while he listened with great attention, he found himself suddenly surrounded by armed men, who seized and pinioned down his arms, took away his sword, and conveyed him by force into a hackney-coach provided for the purpose. In vain he expostulated on this violence with three persons who accompanied him in the vehicle. He could not extort one word by way of reply; and, from their gloomy aspects, he began to be apprehensive of assassination. Had the carriage passed through any frequented place, he would have endeavoured to alarm the inhabitants, but it was already clear of the town, and his conductors took care to avoid all villages and inhabited houses.
After having travelled about two miles, the coach stopped at a large iron gate, which being opened, our adventurer was led in silence through a spacious house into a tolerably decent apartment, which he understood was intended for his bed-chamber. In a few minutes after his arrival, he was visited by a man of no very prepossessing appearance, who endeavouring to smooth his countenance, which was naturally stern, welcomed our adventurer to his house; exhorted him to be of good cheer, assuring him he should want for nothing, and desired to know what he would choose for supper.
Sir Launcelot, in answer to this civil address, begged he would explain the nature of his confinement, and the reasons for which his arms were tied like those of the worst malefactor. The other postponed till to-morrow the explanation he demanded, but in the meantime unbound his fetters, and, as he declined eating, left him alone to his repose. He took care, however, in retiring, to double lock the door of the room, whose windows were grated on the outside with iron.
The knight, being thus abandoned to his own meditations, began to ruminate on the present adventure with equal surprise and concern; but the more he revolved circumstances, the more was he perplexed in his conjectures. According to the state of the mind, a very subtle philosopher is often puzzled by a very plain proposition; and this was the case of our adventurer.--What made the strongest impression upon his mind was a notion that he was apprehended on suspicion of treasonable practices, by a warrant from the Secretary of State, in consequence of some false malicious information; and that his prison was no other than the house of a messenger, set apart for the accommodation of suspected persons. In this opinion he comforted himself by recollecting his own conscious innocence, and reflecting that he should be entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus, as the act including that inestimable jewel was happily not suspended at this time.
Consoled by this self-assurance, he quietly resigned himself to slumber; but before he fell asleep, he was very disagreeably undeceived in his conjecture. His ears were all at once saluted with a noise from the next room, conveyed in distinct bounces against the wainscot; then a hoarse voice exclaimed, "Bring up the artillery--let Brutandorf's brigade advance--detach my black hussars to ravage the country--let them be new booted--take particular care of the spur-leathers--make a desert of Lusatia--bombard the suburbs of Pera--go, tell my brother Henry to pass the Elbe at Meissen with forty battalions and fifty squadrons--so ho, you Major-General Donder, why don't you finish your second parallel?--send hither the engineer Shittenback--I'll lay all the shoes in my shop, the breach will be practicable in four-and-twenty hours--don't tell me of your works; you and your works be d--n'd."