.

.

Ho there! Guards! Sir William! What! is there no groom of the chamber in waiting?
Alack! it shall go hard with--" "What aileth thee ?" asked a whisper near him.

"Who art thou calling ?" "Sir William Herbert.

Who art thou ?" "I?
Who should I be, but thy sister Nan?
Oh, Tom, I had forgot! Thou'rt mad yet--poor lad, thou'rt mad yet: would I had never woke to know it again! But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beaten till we die!" The startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from his stiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among his foul straw with a moan and the ejaculation-- "Alas! it was no dream, then!" In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.
In the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noises and shoutings, apparently but a block or two away.