A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether they were awake and in their senses, or asleep and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself, and exclaimed in a voice of authority —

“Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again — seize the vagabond!”

He would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and cried out —

“On your peril!

Touch him not, he is the King!”

The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house;