Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/272

244 be hanged the day the castle is taken—[the Friar raised his eyebrows with a smile of contempt]—and the artisans who have constructed enginery of war. Lady Mortimer shall be dismissed under escort wherever she may choose to go, and you, the son and heir of the baron, shall be held to ransom. The Count also had fully intended to include in his terms of clemency the young Lady Amabel, in the belief that she too was no more than an honorable maiden doing her duty in succoring the distressed and caring for the wounded. But the said Lady Amabel having taken upon herself the character of an open enemy, engaged in carrying messages through our lines, and having fallen by the fortune of war into our hands, we do declare her a spy, and consider her life forfeited by the rules of war. Yet the Count de Ferrers, remembering her tender years, is loath to put her to death, and therefore offers the following terms. If the castle which you are now unlawfully withholding be yielded up without resistance, avoiding the sacrifice of life that is now useless, the Count will pardon the Lady Amabel and restore her uninjured. This offer will be held open until noon of the day this scroll is delivered. If it remain unanswered or unaccepted, the Count de Ferrers will hang the said spy within sight of the castle walls, and will then