“Odds my life, a strange boon! Was it not the fate intended thee?”

“O good my liege, not so! It is ordered that I be boiled alive!”

The hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from his chair. As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out —

“Have thy wish, poor soul! an’ thou had poisoned a hundred men thou shouldst not suffer so miserable a death.”

The prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into passionate expressions of gratitude — ending with —

“If ever thou shouldst know misfortune — which God forefend! — may thy goodness to me this day be remembered and requited!”