"Oh, my friend," he cried, "this coronation does not please me. My heart tells me that some fatality will follow."

He sat down, grasping the case of his reading-glass, whilst Sully could only stare at him amazed by this out-burst. Thus he remained awhile in deep thought. Then he started up again.

"Pardieu!" he cried. "I shall be murdered in this city. It is their only resource. I see it plainly. This cursed coronation will be the cause of my death."

"What a thought, sir!"

"You think that I have been reading the almanach or paying heed to the prophets, eh? But listen to me now, Grand Master." And wrinkles deepened about the bold, piercing eyes. "It is four months and more since we announced our intention of going to war, and France has resounded with our preparations. We have made no secret of it. Yet in Spain not a finger has been lifted in preparation to resist us, not a sword has been sharpened. Upon what does Spain build? Whence her confidence that in despite of my firm resolve and my abundant preparations, despite the fact announced that I am to march on the lath of this month, despite the fact that my troops are already in Champagne with a train of artillery so complete and well-furnished that France has never seen the like of it, and perhaps never will again—whence the confidence that despite all this there is no need to prepare defences? Upon what do they build, I say, when they assume, as assume they must, that there will be no war? Resolve me that, Grand Master."

But Sully, overwhelmed, could only gasp and ejaculate.

"You had not thought of it, eh? Yet it is clear enough Spain builds on my death. And who are the friends of Spain here in France? Who was it intrigued with Spain in such a way and to such ends as in my lifetime could never have been carried to an issue? Ha! You see."

"I cannot, sire. It is too horrible. It is impossible!" cried that loyal, honest gentleman. "And yet if you are convinced of it, you should break off this coronation, your journey, and your war. If you wish it so, it is not difficult to satisfy you."

"Ay, that is it." He came to his feet, and gripped the duke's shoulder in his strong, nervous hand. "Break off this coronation, and never let me hear of it again. That will suffice. Thus I can rid my mind of apprehensions, and leave Paris with nothing to fear."

"Very well. I will send at once to Notre Dame and to St. Denis, to stop the preparations and dismiss the workmen."

"Ah, wait." The eyes that for a moment had sparkled with new hope, grew dull again; the lines of care descended between the brows. "Oh, what to decide! What to decide! It is what I wish, my friend. But how will my wife take it?"

"Let her take it as she will. I cannot believe that she will continue obstinate when she knows what apprehensions you have of disaster."

"Perhaps not, perhaps not," he answered. But his tone was not sanguine. "Try to persuade her, Sully. Without her consent I cannot do this thing. But you will know how to persuade her. Go to her."

Sully suspended the preparations for the coronation, and sought the Queen. For three days, he tells us, he used prayers, entreaties, and arguments with which to endeavour to move her. But all was labour lost. Maria de' Medici was not to be moved. To all Sully's arguments she opposed an argument that was unanswerable.

Unless she were crowned Queen of France, as was her absolute right, she would be a person of no account and subject to the Council of Regency during the King's absence, a position unworthy and intolerable to her, the mother of the Dauphin.

And so it was Henry's part to yield. His hands were tied by the wrongs that he had done, and the culminating wrong that he was doing her by this very war, as he had himself openly acknowledged. He had chanced one day to ask the Papal Nuncio what Rome thought of this war.

"Those who have the best information," the Nuncio answered boldly, "are of opinion that the principal object of the war is the Princess of Conde, whom your Majesty wishes to bring back to France."

Angered by this priestly insolence, Henry's answer had been an impudently defiant acknowledgment of the truth of that allegation.

"Yes, by God!" he cried. "Yes—most certainly I want to have her back, and I will have her back; no one shall hinder me, not even God's viceregent on earth."

Having uttered those words, which he knew to have been carried to the Queen, and to have wounded her perhaps more deeply than anything that had yet happened in this affair, his conscience left him, despite his fears, powerless now to thwart her even to the extent of removing those pernicious familiars of hers of whose plottings he had all but positive evidence.

And so the coronation was at last performed with proper pomp and magnificence at St. Denis on Thursday, the 13th May. It had been concerted that the festivities should last four days and conclude on the Sunday with the Queen's public entry into Paris. On the Monday the King was to set out to take command of his armies, which were already marching upon the frontiers.

Thus Henry proposed, but the Queen—convinced by his own admission of the real aim and object of the war, and driven by outraged pride to hate the man who offered her this crowning insult, and determined that at all costs it must be thwarted—had lent an ear to Concini's purpose to avenge her, and was ready to repay infidelity with infidelity. Concini and his fellow-conspirators had gone to work so confidently that a week before the coronation a courier had appeared in Liege, announcing that he was going with news of Henry's assassination to the Princes of Germany, whilst at the same time accounts of the King's death were being published in France and Italy.

Meanwhile, whatever inward misgivings Henry may have entertained, outwardly at least he appeared serene and good-humoured at his wife's coronation, gaily greeting her at the end of the ceremony by the title of "Madam Regent."

The little incident may have touched her, arousing her conscience. For that night she disturbed his slumbers by sudden screams, and when he sprang up in solicitous alarm she falteringly told him of a dream in which she had seen him slain, and fell to imploring him with a tenderness such as had been utterly foreign to her of late to take great care of himself in the days to come. In the morning she renewed those entreaties, beseeching him not to leave the Louvre that day, urging that she had a premonition it would be fatal to him.

He laughed for answer. "You have heard of the predictions of La Brosse," said he. "Bah! You should not attach credit to such nonsense."

Anon came the Duke of Vendome, his natural son by the Marquise de Verneuil, with a like warning and a like entreaty, only to receive a like answer.

Being dull and indisposed as a consequence of last night's broken rest, Henry lay down after dinner. But finding sleep denied him, he rose, pensive and gloomy, and wandered aimlessly down, and out into the courtyard. There an exempt of the guard, of whom he casually asked the time, observing the King's pallor and listlessness, took the liberty of suggesting that his Majesty might benefit if he took the air.

That chance remark decided Henry's fate. His eyes quickened responsively. "You advise well," said he. "Order my coach. I will go to the Arsenal to see the Duc de Sully, who is indisposed."

On the stones beyond the gates, where lackeys were wont to await their masters, sat a lean fellow of some thirty years of age, in a dingy, clerkly attire, so repulsively evil of countenance that he had once been arrested on no better grounds than because it was deemed impossible that a man with such a face could be other than a villain.

Whilst the coach was being got ready, Henry re-entered the Louvre, and startled the Queen by announcing his intention. With fearful insistence she besought him to countermand the order, and not to leave the palace.

"I will but go there and back," he said, laughing at her fears. "I shall have returned before you realize that I have gone." And so he went, never to return alive.

He sat at the back of the coach, and the weather being fine all the curtains were drawn up so that he might view the decorations of the city against the Queen's public entry on Sunday. The Duc d'Epernon was on his right, the Duc de Montbazon and the Marquis de la Force on his left. Lavordin and Roquelaure were in the right boot, whilst near the left boot, opposite to Henry, sat Mirebeau and du Plessis Liancourt. He was attended only by a small number of gentlemen on horseback, and some footmen.

The coach turned from the Rue St. Honore into the narrow Rue de la Ferronerie, and there was brought to a halt by a block occasioned by the meeting of two carts, one laden with hay, the other with wine. The footmen went ahead with the exception of two. Of these, one advanced to clear a way for the royal vehicle, whilst the other took the opportunity to fasten his garter.

At that moment, gliding like a shadow between the coach and the shops, came that shabby, hideous fellow who had been sitting on the stones outside the Louvre an hour ago. Raising himself by deliberately standing upon one of the spokes of the stationary wheel, he leaned over the Duc d'Epernon, and, whipping a long, stout knife from his sleeve, stabbed Henry in the breast. The King, who was in the act of reading a letter, cried out, and threw up his arms in an instinctive warding movement, thereby exposing his heart. The assassin stabbed again, and this time the blade went deep.

With a little gasping cough, Henry sank together, and blood gushed from his mouth.

The predictions were fulfilled; the tale borne by the courier riding through Liege a week ago was made true, as were the stories of his death already at that very hour circulating in Antwerp, Malines, Brussels, and elsewhere.

The murderer aimed yet a third blow, but this at last was parried by Epernon, whereupon the fellow stepped back from the coach, and stood there, making no attempt to escape, or even to rid himself of the incriminating knife. St. Michel, one of the King's gentlemen-in-waiting, who had followed the coach, whipped out his sword and would have slain him on the spot had he not been restrained by Epernon. The footmen seized the fellow, and delivered him over to the captain of the guard. He proved to be a school-master of Angouleme—which was Epernon's country. His name was Ravaillac.

The curtains of the coach were drawn, the vehicle was put about, and driven back to the Louvre, whilst to avoid all disturbance it was announced to the people that the King was merely wounded.

But St. Michel went on to the Arsenal, taking with him the knife that had stabbed his master, to bear the sinister tidings to Henry's loyal and devoted friend. Sully knew enough to gauge exactly whence the blow had proceeded. With anger and grief in his heart he got to horse, ill as he was, and, calling together his people, set out presently for the Louvre, with a train one hundred strong, which was presently increased to twice that number by many of the King's faithful servants who joined his company as he advanced. In the Rue de la Pourpointicre a man in passing slipped a note into his hand.

It was a brief scrawl: "Monsieur, where are ye going? It is done. I have seen him dead. If you enter the Louvre you will not escape any more than he did."

Nearing St. Innocent, the warning was repeated, this time by a gentleman named du Jon, who stopped to mutter:

"Monsieur le Duc, our evil is without remedy. Look to yourself, for this strange blow will have fearful consequences."

Again in the Rue St. Honore another note was thrown him, whose contents were akin to those of the first. Yet with misgivings mounting swiftly to certainty, Sully rode amain towards the Louvre, his train by now amounting to some three hundred horse. But at the end of the street he was stopped by M. de Vitry, who drew rein as they met.

"Ah, monsieur," Vitry greeted him, "where are you going with such a following? They will never suffer you to enter the Louvre with more than two or three attendants, which I would not advise you to do. For this plot does not end here. I have seen some persons so little sensible of the loss they have sustained that they cannot even simulate the grief they should feel. Go back, monsieur. There is enough for you to do without going to the Louvre."

Persuaded by Vitry's solemnity, and by what he knew in his heart, Sully faced about and set out to retrace his steps. But presently he was overtaken by a messenger from the Queen, begging him to come at once to her at the Louvre, and to bring as few persons as possible with him. "This proposal," he writes, "to go alone and deliver myself into the hands of my enemies, who filled the Louvre, was not calculated to allay my suspicions."

Moreover he received word at that moment that an exempt of the guards and a force of soldiers were already at the gates of the Arsenal, that others had been sent to the Temple, where the powder was stored, and others again to the treasurer of the Exchequer to stop all the money there.

"Convey to the Queen my duty and service," he bade the messenger, "and assure her that until she acquaints me with her orders I shall continue assiduously to attend the affairs of my office." And with that he went to shut himself up in the Bastille, whither he was presently followed by a stream of her Majesty's envoys, all bidding him to the Louvre. But Sully, ill as he was, and now utterly prostrated by all that he had endured, put himself to bed and made of his indisposition a sufficient excuse.

Yet on the morrow he allowed himself to be persuaded to obey her summons, receiving certain assurances that he had no ground for any apprehensions. Moreover, he may by now have felt a certain security in the esteem in which the Parisians held him. An attempt against him in the Louvre itself would prove that the blow that had killed his master was not the independent act of a fanatic, as it was being represented; and vengeance would follow swiftly upon the heads of those who would thus betray themselves of having made of that poor wretch's fanaticism an instrument to their evil ends.

In that assurance he went, and he has left on record the burning indignation aroused in him at the signs of satisfaction, complacency, and even mirth that he discovered in that house of death. The Queen herself, however, overwrought by the events, and perhaps conscience-stricken by the tragedy which in the eleventh hour she had sought to avert, burst into tears at sight of Sully, and brought in the Dauphin, who flung himself upon the Duke's neck.

"My son," the Queen addressed him, "this is Monsieur de Sully. You must love him well, for he was one of the best and most faithful servants of the King your father, and I entreat him to continue to serve you in the same manner."

Words so fair might have convinced a man less astute that all his suspicions were unworthy. But, even then, the sequel would very quickly have undeceived him. For very soon thereafter his fall was brought about by the Concinis and their creatures, so that no obstacle should remain between themselves and the full gratification of their fell ambitions.

At once he saw the whole policy of the dead King subversed; he saw the renouncing of all ancient alliances, and the union of the crowns of France and Spain; the repealing of all acts of pacification; the destruction of the Protestants; the dissipation of the treasures amassed by Henry; the disgrace of those who would not receive the yoke of the new favourites. All this Sully witnessed in his declining years, and he witnessed, too, the rapid rise to the greatest power and dignity in the State of that Florentine adventurer, Concino Concini—now bearing the title of Marshal d'Ancre—who had so cunningly known how to profit by a Queen's jealousy and a King's indiscretions.

As for the miserable Ravaillac, it is pretended that he maintained under torture and to the very hour of his death that he had no accomplices, that what he had done he had done to prevent an unrighteous war against Catholicism and the Pope—which was, no doubt, the falsehood with which those who used him played upon his fanaticism and whetted him to their service. I say "pretended" because, after all, complete records of his examinations are not discoverable, and there is a story that when at the point of death, seeing himself abandoned by those in whom perhaps he had trusted, he signified a desire to confess, and did so confess; but the notary Voisin, who took his depositions in articulo mortis, set them down in a hand so slovenly as to be afterwards undecipherable.

That may or may not be true. But the statement that when the President du Harlay sought to pursue inquiries into certain allegations by a woman named d'Escoman, which incriminated the Duc d'Epernon, he received a royal order to desist, rests upon sound authority.

* * * * *

That is the story of the assassination of Henry IV. re-told in the light of certain records which appear to me to have been insufficiently studied. They should suggest a train of speculation leading to inferences which, whilst obvious, I hesitate to define absolutely.

"If it be asked," says Perefixe, "who were the friends that suggested to Ravaillac so damnable a design, history replies that it is ignorant and that upon an action of Such consequences it is not permissible to give suspicions and conjectures for certain truths. The judges themselves who interrogated him dared not open their mouths, and never mentioned the matter but with gestures of horror and amazement."



VI. THE BARREN WOOING

The Murder of Amy Robsart



There had been a banquet, followed by a masque, and this again by a dance in which the young queen had paired off with Lord Robert Dudley, who in repute was the handsomest man in Europe, just as in fact he was the vainest, shallowest, and most unscrupulous. There had been homage and flattery lavishly expressed, and there was a hint of masked hostility from certain quarters to spice the adventure, and to thrill her bold young spirit. Never yet in all the months of her reign since her coronation in January of last year had she felt so much a queen, and so conscious of the power of her high estate; never so much a woman, and so conscious of the weakness of her sex. The interaction of those conflicting senses wrought upon her like a heady wine. She leaned more heavily upon the silken arm of her handsome Master of the Horse, and careless in her intoxication of what might be thought or said, she—who by the intimate favour shown him had already loosed the tongue of Scandal and set it chattering in every court in Europe—drew him forth from that thronged and glittering chamber of the Palace of Whitehall into the outer solitude and friendly gloom.

And he, nothing loth to obey the suasion of that white hand upon his arm, exultant, indeed, to parade before them all the power he had with her, went willingly enough. Let Norfolk and Sussex scowl, let Arundel bite his lip until it bled, and sober Cecil stare cold disapproval. They should mend their countenances soon, and weigh their words or be for ever silenced, when he was master in England. And that he would soon be master he was assured to-night by every glance of her blue eyes, by the pressure of that fair hand upon his arm, by the languishing abandonment with which that warm young body swayed towards him, as they passed out from the blaze of lights and the strains of music into the gloom and silence of the gallery leading to the terrace.

"Out—let us go out, Robin. Let me have air," she almost panted, as she drew him on.

Assuredly he would be master soon. Indeed, he might have been master already but for that wife of his, that stumbling-block to his ambition, who practiced the housewifely virtues at Cumnor Place, and clung so tenaciously and so inconsiderately to life in spite of all his plans to relieve her of the burden of it.

For a year and more his name had been coupled with the Queen's in a tale that hurt her honour as a woman and imperilled her dignity as a sovereign. Already in October of 1559 Alvarez de Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, had written home: "I have learnt certain things as to the terms on which the Queen and Lord Robert stand towards each other which I could not have believed."

That was at a time when de Quadra was one of a dozen ambassadors who were competing for her hand, and Lord Robert had, himself, appeared to be an ally of de Quadra and an advocate of the Spanish marriage with the Archduke Charles. But it was a presence which nowise deceived the astute Spaniard, who employed a legion of spies to keep him well informed.

"All the dallying with us," he wrote, "all the dallying with the Swede, all the dallying there will be with the rest, one after another, is merely to keep Lord Robert's enemies in play until his villainy about his wife can be executed."

What that particular villainy was, the ambassador had already stated earlier in his letter. "I have learnt from a person who usually gives me true information that Lord Robert has sent to have his wife poisoned."

What had actually happened was that Sir Richard Verney—a trusted retainer of Lord Robert's—had reported to Dr. Bayley, of New College, Oxford, that Lady Robert Dudley was "sad and ailing," and had asked him for a potion. But the doctor was learned in more matters than physic. He had caught an echo of the tale of Lord Robert's ambition; he had heard a whisper that whatever suitors might come from overseas for Elizabeth, she would marry none but "my lord"—as Lord Robert was now commonly styled. More, he had aforetime heard rumours of the indispositions of Lady Robert, yet had never found those rumours verified by the fact. Some months ago, it had been reported that her ladyship was suffering from cancer of the breast and likely soon to die of it. Yet Dr. Bayley had reason to know that a healthier woman did not live in Berkshire.

The good doctor was a capable deductive reasoner, and the conclusion to which he came was that if they poisoned her under cover of his potion—she standing in no need of physic—he might afterwards be hanged as a cover for their crime. So he refused to prescribe as he was invited, nor troubled to make a secret of invitation and refusal.

For awhile, then, Lord Robert had prudently held his hand; moreover, the urgency there had been a year ago, when that host of foreign suitors laid siege to Elizabeth of England, had passed, and his lordship could afford to wait. But now of a sudden the urgency was returned. Under the pressure brought to bear upon her to choose a husband, Elizabeth had half-committed herself to marry the Archduke Charles, promising the Spanish ambassador a definite answer within a few days.

Lord Robert had felt the earth to be quaking under him; he had seen the ruin of his high ambitions; he had watched with rage the expanding mockery upon the countenances of Norfolk, Sussex, and those others who hated and despised him; and he had cursed that wife of his who knew not when to die. But for that obstinacy with which she clung to life he had been the Queen's husband these many months, so making an end to suspense and to the danger that lies in delay.

To-night the wantonness with which the Queen flaunted before the eyes of all her court the predilection in which she held him, came not merely to lull his recent doubts and fears, to feed his egregious vanity, and to assure him that in her heart he need fear no rival; it came also to set his soul Quiver impotent rage. He had but to put forth his hands to possess himself of this splendid prize. Yet those hands of his were bound while that woman lived at Cumnor. Conceive his feelings as they stole away together like any pair of lovers.

Arm in arm they came by a stone gallery, where a stalwart scarlet sentinel, a yeoman of the guard, with a Tudor rose embroidered in gold upon his back, stood under a lamp set in the wall, with grounded pike and body stiffly erect.

The tall young Queen was in crimson satin with cunningly-wrought silver embroideries, trimmed with tufted silver fringe, her stomacher stiff with silver bullion studded with gold rosettes and Roman pearls, her bodice cut low to display her splendid neck, decked by a carcanet of pearls and rubies, and surmounted by a fan-like cuff of guipure, high behind and sloping towards the bust. Thus she appeared to the sentinel as the rays of the single lamp behind him struck fire from her red-gold hair. As if by her very gait to express the wantonness of her mood, she pointed her toes and walked with head thrown back, smiling up into the gipsy face of her companion, who was arrayed from head to foot in shimmering ivory satin, with an elegance no man in England could have matched.

They came by that stone gallery to a little terrace above the Privy Steps. A crescent moon hung low over the Lambeth marshes across the river. From a barge that floated gay with lights in mid-stream came a tinkle of lutes, and the sweet voice of a singing boy. A moment the lovers stood at gaze, entranced by the beauty of the soft, tepid September night, so subtly adapted to their mood. Then she fetched a sigh, and hung more heavily upon his arm, leaned nearer to his tall, vigorous, graceful figure.

"Robin, Robin!" was all she said, but in her voice throbbed a world of passionate longing, an exquisite blend of delight and pain.

Judging the season ripe, his arm flashed round her, and drew her fiercely close. For a moment she was content to yield, her head against his stalwart shoulder, a very woman nestling to the mate of her choice, surrendering to her master. Then the queen in her awoke and strangled nature. Roughly she disengaged herself from his arm, and stood away, her breathing quickened.

"God's Death, Robin!" There was a harsh note in the voice that lately had cooed so softly. "You are strangely free, I think."

But he, impudence incarnate, nothing abashed, accustomed to her gusty moods, to her alternations between the two natures she had inherited—from overbearing father and wanton mother—was determined at all costs to take the fullest advantage of the hour, to make an end of suspense.

"I am not free, but enslaved—by love and worship of you. Would you deny me; Would you?"

"Not I, but fate," she answered heavily, and he knew that the woman at Cumnor was in her mind.

"Fate will soon mend the wrong that fate has done—very soon now." He took her hand, and, melted again from her dignity, she let it lie in his. "When that is done, sweet, then will I claim you for my own."

"When that is done, Robin?" she questioned almost fearfully, as if a sudden dread suspicion broke upon her mind. "When what is done?"

He paused a moment to choose his words, what time she stared intently into the face that gleamed white in the surrounding gloom.

"When that poor ailing spirit is at rest." And he added: "It will be soon."

"Thou hast said the same aforetime, Robin. Yet it has not so fallen out."

"She has clung to life beyond what could have been believed of her condition," he explained, unconscious of any sinister ambiguity. "But the end, I know, is very near—a matter but of days."

"Of days!" she shivered, and moved forward to the edge of the terrace, he keeping step beside her. Then she stood awhile in silence, looking down at the dark oily surge of water. "You loved her once, Robin?" she asked, in a queer, unnatural voice.

"I never loved but once," answered that perfect courtier.

"Yet you married her—men say it was a love marriage. It was a marriage, anyway, and you can speak so calmly of her death?" Her tone was brooding. She sought understanding that should silence her own lingering doubt of him.

"Where lies the blame? Who made me what I am?" Again his bold arm encompassed her. Side by side they peered down through the gloom at the rushing waters, and he seized an image from them. "Our love is like that seething tide," he said. "To resist it is to labour in agony awhile, and then to perish."

"And to yield is to be swept away."

"To happiness," he cried, and reverted to his earlier prayer. "Say that when... that afterwards, I may claim you for my own. Be true to yourself, obey the voice of instinct, and so win to happiness."

She looked up at him, seeking to scan the handsome face in that dim light that baffled her, and he observed the tumultuous heave of her white breast.

"Can I trust thee, Robin? Can I trust thee? Answer me true!" she implored him, adorably weak, entirely woman now.

"What does your own heart answer you?" quoth he, loaning close above her.

"I think I can, Robin. And, anyway, I must. I cannot help myself. I am but a woman, after all," she murmured, and sighed. "Be it as thou wilt. Come to me again when thou art free."

He bent lower, murmuring incoherently, and she put up a hand to pat his swarthy bearded cheek.

"I shall make thee greater than any man in England, so thou make me happier than any woman."

He caught the hand in his and kissed it passionately, his soul singing a triumph song within him. Norfolk and Sussex and those other scowling ones should soon be whistled to the master's heel.

As they turned arm in arm into the gallery to retrace their steps, they came suddenly face to face with a slim, sleek gentleman, who bowed profoundly, a smile upon h is crafty, shaven, priestly face. In a smooth voice and an accent markedly foreign, he explained that he, too, sought the cool of the terrace, not thinking to intrude; and upon that, bowing again, he passed on and effaced himself. It was Alvarez de Quadra, Bishop of Aquila, the argus-eyed ambassador of Spain.

The young face of the Queen hardened.

"I would I were as well served abroad as the King of Spain is here," she said aloud, that the retreating ambassador might hear the dubious compliment; and for my lord's ear alone she added under her breath: "The spy! Philip of Spain will hear of this."

"So that he hears something more, what shall it signify?" quoth my lord, and laughed.

They paced the length of the gallery in silence, past the yeoman of the guard, who kept his watch, and into the first antechamber. Perhaps it was that meeting with de Quadra and my lord's answer to her comment that prompted what now she asked: "What is it ails her, Robin?"

"A wasting sickness," he answered, never doubting to whom the question alluded.

"You said, I think, that... that the end is very near."

He caught her meaning instantly. "Indeed, if she is not dead already, she is very nearly so."

He lied, for never had Amy Dudley been in better health. And yet he spoke the truth, for in so much as her life depended upon his will, it was as good as spent. This was, he knew, a decisive moment of his career. The hour was big with fate. If now he were weak or hesitant, the chance might slip away and be for ever lost to him. Elizabeth's moods were as uncertain as were certain the hostile activities of my lord's enemies. He must strike quickly whilst she was in her present frame of mind, and bring her to wedlock, be it in public or in private. But first he must shake off the paralysing encumbrance of that house-wife down at Cumnor.

I believe—from evidence that I account abundant—that he considered it with the cold remorselessness of the monstrous egotist he was. An upstart, great-grandson to a carpenter, noble only in two descents, and in both of them stained by the block, he found a queen—the victim of a physical passion that took no account of the worthlessness underlying his splendid exterior—reaching out a hand to raise him to a throne. Being what he was, he weighed his young wife's life at naught in the evil scales of his ambition. And yet he had loved her once, more truly perhaps than he could now pretend to love the Queen.

It was some ten years since, as a lad of eighteen, he had taken Sir John Robsart's nineteen-year-old daughter to wife. She had brought him considerable wealth and still more devotion. Because of this devotion she was content to spend her days at Cumnor, whilst he ruffled it at court; content to take such crumbs of attention as he could spare her upon occasion. And during the past year, whilst he had been plotting her death, she had been diligently caring for his interests and fostering the prosperity of the Berkshire estate. If he thought of this at all, he allowed no weakly sentiment to turn him from his purpose. There was too much at stake for that—a throne, no less.

And so, on the morning after that half-surrender of Elizabeth's, we find my lord closeted with his henchman, Sir Richard Verney. Sir Richard—like his master—was a greedy, unscrupulous, ambitious scoundrel, prepared to go to any lengths for the sake of such worldly advancement as it lay in my lord's power to give him. My lord perforce used perfect frankness with this perfect servant.

"Thou'lt rise or fall with me, Dick," quoth he. "Help me up, then, and so mount with me. When I am King, as soon now I shall be, look to me. Now to the thing that is to do. Thou'lt have guessed it."

To Sir Richard it was an easy guess, considering how much already he had been about this business. He signified as much.

My lord shifted in his elbow-chair, and drew his embroidered bedgown of yellow satin closer about his shapely limbs.

"Hast failed me twice before, Richard," said he. "God's death, man, fail me not again, or the last chance may go the way of the others. There's a magic in the number three. See that I profit by it, or I am undone, and thou with me."

"I'd not have failed before, but for that suspicious dotard Bayley," grumbled Verney. "Your lordship bade me see that all was covered."

"Aye, aye. And I bid thee so again. On thy life, leave no footprints by which we may be tracked. Bayley is not the only physician in Oxford. About it, then, and swiftly. Time is the very soul of fortune in this business, with the Spaniard straining at the leash, and Cecil and the rest pleading his case with her. Succeed, and thy fortune's made; fail, and trouble not to seek me again."

Sir Richard bowed, and took his leave. As he reached the door, his lordship stayed him. "If thou bungle, do not look to me. The court goes to Windsor to-morrow. Bring me word there within the week." He rose, magnificently tall and stately, in his bedgown of embroidered yellow satin, his handsome head thrown back, and went after his retainer. "Thou'lt not fail me, Dick," said he, a hand upon the lesser scoundrel's shoulder. "There is much at issue for me, and for thee with me."

"I will not fail you, my lord," Sir Richard rashly promised, and on that they parted.

Sir Richard did not mean to fail. He knew the importance of succeeding, and he appreciated the urgency of the business as much as did my lord himself. But between his cold, remorseless will to succeed and success itself there lay a gulf which it needed all his resource to bridge. He paid a short visit to Lady Robert at Cumnor, and professed deepest concern to find in her a pallor and an ailing air which no one else had yet observed. He expressed himself on the subject to Mrs. Buttelar and the other members of her ladyship's household, reproaching them with their lack of care of their mistress. Mrs. Buttelar became indignant under his reproaches.

"Nay, now, Sir Richard, do you wonder that my lady is sad and downcast with such tales as are going of my lord's doings at court, and of what there is 'twixt the Queen and him? Her ladyship may be too proud to complain, but she suffers the more for that, poor lamb. There was talk of a divorce awhile ago that got to her ears."

"Old wives' tales," snorted Sir Richard.

"Likely," agreed Mrs. Buttelar. "Yet when my lord neither comes to Cumnor, nor requires her ladyship to go to him, what is she to think, poor soul?"

Sir Richard made light of all, and went off to Oxford to find a physician more accommodating than Dr. Bayley. But Dr. Bayley had talked too much, and it was in vain that Sir Richard pleaded with each of the two physicians he sought that her ladyship was ailing—"sad and heavy"—and that he must have a potion for her.

Each in turn shook his head. They had no medicine for sorrow, was their discreet answer. From his description of her condition, said each, it was plain that her ladyship's sickness was of the mind, and, considering the tales that were afloat, neither was surprised.

Sir Richard went back to his Oxford lodging with the feeling of a man checkmated. For two whole days of that precious time he lay there considering what to do. He thought of going to seek a physician in Abingdon. But fearing no better success in that quarter, fearing, indeed, that in view of the rumours abroad he would merely be multiplying what my lord called "footprints," he decided to take some other way to his master's ends. He was a resourceful, inventive scoundrel, and soon he had devised a plan.

On Friday he wrote from Oxford to Lady Robert, stating that he had a communication for her on the subject of his lordship as secret as it was urgent. That he desired to come to her at Cumnor again, but dared not do so openly. He would come if she would contrive that her servants should be absent, and he exhorted her to let no one of them know that he was coming, else he might be ruined, out of his desire to serve her.

That letter he dispatched by the hand of his servant Nunweek, desiring him to bring an answer. It was a communication that had upon her ladyship's troubled mind precisely the effect that the rascal conceived. There was about Sir Richard's personality nothing that could suggest the villain. He was a smiling, blue-eyed, florid gentleman, of a kindly manner that led folk to trust him. And on the occasion of his late visit to Cumnor he had displayed such tender solicitude that her ladyship—starved of affection as she was—had been deeply touched.

His letter so cunningly couched filled her with vague alarm and with anxiety. She had heard so many and such afflicting rumours, and had received in my lord's cruel neglect of her such circumstantial confirmation of them, that she fastened avidly upon what she deemed the chance of learning at last the truth. Sir Richard Verney had my lord's confidence, and was much about the court in his attendance upon my lord. He would know the truth, and what could this letter mean but that he was disposed to tell it.

So she sent him back a line in answer, bidding him come on Sunday afternoon. She would contrive to be alone in the house, so that he need not fear being seen by any.

As she promised, so she performed, and on the Sunday packed off her household to the fair that was being held at Abingdon that day, using insistence with the reluctant, and particularly with one of her women, a Mrs. Oddingsell, who expressed herself strongly against leaving her ladyship alone in that lonely house. At length, however, the last of them was got off, and my lady was left impatiently to await her secret visitor. It was late afternoon when he arrived, accompanied by Nunweek, whom he left to hold the horses under the chestnuts in the avenue. Himself he reached the house across the garden, where the blighting hand of autumn was already at work.

Within the porch he found her waiting, fretted by her impatience.

"It is very good in you to have come, Sir Richard," was her gracious greeting.

"I am your ladyship's devoted servant," was his sufficient answer, and he doffed his plumed bonnet, and bowed low before her. "We shall be private in your bower above stairs," he added.

"Why, we are private anywhere. I am all alone, as you desired."

"That is very wise—most wise," said he. "Will your ladyship lead the way?"

So they went up that steep, spiral staircase, which had loomed so prominently in the plans the ingenious scoundrel had evolved. Across the gallery on the first floor they entered a little room whose windows overlooked the garden. This was her bower—an intimate cosy room, reflecting on every hand the gentle, industrious personality of the owner. On an oak table near the window were spread some papers and account-books concerned with the estate—with which she had sought to beguile the time of waiting. She led the way towards this, and, sinking into the high-backed chair that stood before it, she looked up at him expectantly. She was pale, there were dark stains under her eyes, and wistful lines had crept into the sweet face of that neglected wife.

Contemplating his poor victim now, Sir Richard may have compared her with the woman by whom my lord desired so impatiently to supplant her. She was tall and beautifully shaped, despite an almost maidenly slenderness. Her countenance was gentle and adorable, with its soft grey eyes and light brown hair, and tender, wistful mouth.

It was not difficult to believe that Lord Robert had as ardently desired her to wife five years ago as he now desired to be rid of her. Then he obeyed the insistent spur of passion; now he obeyed the remorseless spur of ambition. In reality, then as now, his beacon-light was love of self.

Seeing her so frail and trusting, trembling in her anxious impatience to hear the news of her lord which he had promised her, Sir Richard may have felt some pang of pity. But, like my lord, he was of those whose love of self suffers the rivalry of no weak emotion.

"Your news, Sir Richard," she besought him, her dove-like glance upon his florid face—less florid now than was its wont.

He leaned against the table, his back to the window. "Why, it is briefly this," said he. "My lord..." And then he checked, and fell into a listening attitude.

"What was that? Did you hear anything, my lady?"

"No. What is it?" Her face betrayed alarm, her anxiety mounting under so much mystery.

"Sh! Stay you here," he enjoined. "If we are spied upon..." He left the sentence there. Already he was moving quickly, stealthily, towards the door. He paused before opening it. "Stay where you are, my lady," he enjoined again, so gravely that she could have no thought of disobeying him. "I will return at once."

He stepped out, closed the door, and crossed to the stairs. There he stopped. From his pouch he had drawn a fine length of whipcord, attached at one end to a tiny bodkin of needle sharpness. That bodkin he drove into the edge of one of the panels of the wainscot, in line with the topmost step; drawing the cord taut at a height of a foot or so above this step, he made fast its other end to the newel-post at the stair-head. He had so rehearsed the thing in his mind that the performance of it occupied but a few seconds. Such dim light of that autumn afternoon as reached the spot would leave that fine cord invisible.

Sir Richard went back to her ladyship. She had not moved in his absence, so brief as scarcely to have left her time in which to resolve upon disobeying his injunction.

"We move in secret like conspirators," said he, "and so we are easily affrighted.. I should have known it could be none but my lord himself... here?"

"My lord!" she interrupted, coming excitedly to her feet. "Lord Robert?"

"To be sure, my lady. It was he had need to visit you in secret—for did the Queen have knowledge of his coming here, it would mean the Tower for him. You cannot think what, out of love for you, his lordship suffers. The Queen...

"But do you say that he is here, man," her voice shrilled up in excitement.

"He is below, my lady. Such is his peril that he dared not set foot in Cumnor until he was certain beyond doubt that you are here alone."

"He is below!" she cried, and a flush dyed her pale cheeks, a light of gladness quickened her sad eyes. Already she had gathered from his cunning words a new and comforting explanation of the things reported to her. "He is below!" she repeated. "Oh!" She turned from him, and in an instant was speeding towards the door.

He stood rooted there, his nether lip between his teeth, his face a ghastly white, whilst she ran on.

"My lord! Robin! Robin!" he heard her calling, as she crossed the corridor. Then came a piercing scream that echoed through the silent house; a pause; a crashing thud below; and—silence.

Sir Richard remained by the table, immovable. Blood was trickling down his chin. He had sunk his teeth through his lip when that scream rang out. A long moment thus, as if entranced, awe-stricken. Then he braced himself, and went forward, reeling at first like a drunken man. But by the time he had reached the stairs he was master of himself again. Swiftly, for all his trembling fingers, he unfastened the cord's end from the newel-post. The wrench upon it had already pulled the bodkin from the wainscot. He went down that abrupt spiral staircase at a moderate pace, mechanically coiling the length of whip-cord, and bestowing it with the bodkin in his pouch again, and all the while his eyes were fixed upon the grey bundle that lay so still at the stairs' foot.

He came to it at last, and, pausing, looked more closely. He was thankful that there was not the need to touch it. The position of the brown-haired head was such as to leave no doubt of the complete success of his design. Her neck was broken. Lord Robert Dudley was free to marry the Queen.

Deliberately Sir Richard stepped over the huddled body of that poor victim of a knave's ambition, crossed the hall, and passed out, closing the door. An excellent day's work, thought he, most excellently accomplished. The servants, returning from Abingdon Fair on that Sunday evening, would find her there. They would publish the fact that in their absence her ladyship had fallen downstairs and broken her neck, and that was the end of the matter.

* * * * *

But that was not the end at all. Fate, the ironic interloper, had taken a hand in this evil game.

The court had moved a few days earlier to Windsor, and thither on the Friday—the 6th of September—came Alvarez de Quadra to seek the definite answer which the Queen had promised him on the subject of the Spanish marriage. What he had seen that night at Whitehall, coupled with his mistrust of her promises and experience of her fickleness, had rendered him uneasy. Either she was trifling with him, or else she was behaving in a manner utterly unbecoming the future wife of the Archduke. In either case some explanation was necessary. De Quadra must know where he stood. Having failed to obtain an audience before the court left London, he had followed it to Windsor, cursing all women and contemplating the advantages of the Salic law.

He found at Windsor an atmosphere of constraint, and it was not until the morrow that he obtained an audience with the Queen. Even then this was due to chance rather than to design on the part of Elizabeth. For they met on the terrace as she was returning from hunting. She dismissed those about her, including the stalwart Robert Dudley, and, alone with de Quadra, invited him to speak.

"Madame," he said, "I am writing to my master, and I desire to know whether your Majesty would wish me to add anything to what you have announced already as your intention regarding the Archduke."

She knit her brows. The wily Spaniard fenced so closely that there was no alternative but to come to grips.

"Why, sir," she answered dryly, "you may tell his Majesty that I have come to an absolute decision, which is that I will not marry the Archduke."

The colour mounted to the Spaniard's sallow cheeks. Iron self-control alone saved him from uttering unpardonable words. Even so he spoke sternly:

"This, madame, is not what you had led me to believe when last we talked upon the subject."

At another time Elizabeth might have turned upon him and rent him for that speech. But it happened that she was in high good-humour that afternoon, and disposed to indulgence. She laughed, surveying herself in the small steel mirror that dangled from her waist.

"You are ungallant to remind me, my lord," said she. "My sex, you may have heard, is privileged to change of mind."

"Then, madame, I pray that you may change it yet again." His tone was bitter.

"Your prayer will not be heard. This time I am resolved."

De Quadra bowed. "The King, my master, will not be pleased, I fear."

She looked him straightly in the face, her dark eyes kindling.

"God's death!" said she, "I marry to please myself, and not the King your master."

"You are resolved on marriage then?" flashed he.

"And it please you," she mocked him archly, her mood of joyousness already conquering her momentary indignation.

"What pleases you must please me also, madame," he answered, in a tone so cold that it belied his words. "That it please you, is reason enough why you should marry... Whom did your Majesty say?"

"Nay. I named no names. Yet one so astute might hazard a shrewd guess." Half-challenging, half-coy, she eyed him over her fan.

"A guess? Nay, madame. I might affront your Majesty."

"How so?"

"If I were deluded by appearances. If I named a subject who signally enjoys your royal favour."

"You mean Lord Robert Dudley." She paled a little, and her bosom's heave was quickened. "Why should the guess affront me?"

"Because a queen—a wise queen, madame—does not mate with a subject—particularly with one who has a wife already."

He had stung her. He had wounded at once the pride of the woman and the dignity of the queen, yet in a way that made it difficult for her to take direct offense. She bit her lip and mastered her surge of anger. Then she laughed, a thought sneeringly.

"Why, as to my Lord Robert's wife, it seems you are less well-informed than usual, sir. Lady Robert Dudley is dead, or very nearly so."

And as blank amazement overspread his face, she passed upon her way and left him.

But anon, considering, she grew vaguely uneasy, and that very night expressed her afflicting doubt to my lord, reporting to him de Quadra's words. His lordship, who was mentally near-sighted, laughed.

"He'll change his tone before long," said he.

She set her hands upon his shoulders, and looked up adoringly into his handsome gipsy face. Never had he known her so fond as in these last days since her surrender to him that night upon the terrace at Whitehall, never had she been more the woman and less the queen in her bearing towards him.

"You are sure, Robin? You are quite sure?" she pleaded.

He drew her close, she yielding herself to his embrace. "With so much at stake could I be less than sure, sweet?" said he, and so convinced her—the more easily since he afforded her the conviction she desired.

That was on the night of Saturday, and early on Monday came the news which justified him of his assurances. It was brought him to Windsor by one of Amy's Cumnor servants, a fellow named Bowes, who, with the others, had been away at Abingdon Fair yesterday afternoon, and had returned to find his mistress dead at the stairs' foot—the result of an accident, as all believed.

It was not quite the news that my lord had been expecting. It staggered him a little that an accident so very opportune should have come to resolve his difficulties, obviating the need for recourse to those more dangerous measures with which he had charged Sir Richard Verney. He perceived how suspicion might now fall upon himself, how his enemies would direct it, and on the instant made provision. There and then he seized a pen, and wrote to his kinsman, Sir Thomas Blount, who even then was on his way to Cumnor. He stated in the letter what he had learnt from Bowes, bade Blount engage the coroner to make the strictest investigation, and send for Amy's natural brother, Appleyard. "Have no respect to any living person," was the final injunction of that letter which he sent Blount by the hand of Bowes.

And, then, before he could carry to the Queen the news of this accident which had broken his matrimonial shackles, Sir Richard Verney arrived with the true account. He had expected praise and thanks from his master. Instead, he met first dismay, and then anger and fierce reproaches.

"My lord, this is unjust," the faithful retainer protested. "Knowing the urgency, I took the only way—contrived the accident."

"Pray God," said Dudley, "that the jury find it to have been an accident; for if the truth should come to be discovered, I leave you to the consequences. I warned you of that before you engaged in this. Look for no help from me."

"I look for none," said Sir Richard, stung to hot contempt by the meanness and cowardice so characteristic of the miserable egotist he served. "Nor will there be the need, for I have left no footprints.

"I hope that may be so, for I tell you, man, that I have ordered a strict inquiry, bidding them have no respect to any living person, and to that I shall adhere."

"And if, in spite of that, I am not hanged?" quoth Sir Richard, a sneer upon his white face.

"Come to me again when the affair is closed, and we will talk of it."

Sir Richard went out, rage and disgust in his heart, leaving my lord with rage and fear in his.

Grown calmer now, my lord dressed himself with care and sought the Queen to tell her of the accident that had removed the obstacle to their marriage. And that same night her Majesty coldly informed de Quadra that Lady Robert Dudley had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken her neck.

The Spaniard received the information with a countenance that was inscrutable.

"Your Majesty's gift of prophecy is not so widely known as it deserves to be," was his cryptic comment.

She stared at him blankly a moment. Then a sudden uneasy memory awakened by his words, she drew him forward to a window embrasure apart from those who had stood about her, and for greater security addressed him, as he tells us, in Italian.

"I do not think I understand you, sir. Will you be plain with me?" She stood erect and stiff, and frowned upon him after the manner of her bullying father. But de Quadra held the trumps, and was not easily intimidated.

"About the prophecy?" said he. "Why, did not your Majesty foretell the poor lady's death a full day before it came to pass? Did you not say that she was already dead, or nearly so?"

He saw her blench; saw fear stare from those dark eyes that could be so very bold. Then her ever-ready anger followed swiftly.

"'Sblood, man! What do you imply?" she cried, and went on without waiting for his answer. "The poor woman was sick and ill, and must soon have succumbed; it will no doubt be found that the accident which anticipated nature was due to her condition."

Gently he shook his head, relishing her discomfiture, taking satisfaction in torturing her who had flouted him and his master, in punishing her whom he had every reason to believe guilty.

"Your Majesty, I fear, has been ill-informed on that score. The poor lady was in excellent health—and like to have lived for many years—at least, so I gather from Sir William Cecil, whose information is usually exact."

She clutched his arm. "You told him what I had said?"

"It was indiscreet, perhaps. Yet, how was I to know...?" He left his sentence there. "I but expressed my chagrin at your decision on the score of the Archduke—hardly a wise decision, if I may be so bold," he added slyly.

She caught the suggestion of a bargain, and became instantly suspicious.

"You transcend the duties of your office, my lord," she rebuked him, and turned away.

But soon that night she was closeted with Dudley, and closely questioning him about the affair. My lord was mightily vehement.

"I take Heaven to be my witness," quoth he, when she all but taxed him with having procured his lady's death, "that I am innocent of any part in it. My injunctions to Blount, who has gone to Cumnor, are that the matter be sifted without respect to any person, and if it can be shown that this is other than the accident I deem it, the murderer shall hang."

She flung her arms about his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Robin, Robin, I am full of fears," she wailed, and was nearer to tears than he had ever seen her.

But, anon, as the days passed their fears diminished, and finally the jury at Cumnor—delayed in their finding, and spurred by my lord to exhaustive inquiries—returned a verdict of "found dead," which in all the circumstances left his lordship—who was known, moreover, to have been at Windsor when his lady died—fully acquitted. Both he and the Queen took courage from that finding, and made no secret of it now that they would very soon be wed.

But there were many whom that finding did not convince, who read my lord too well, and would never suffer him to reap the fruits of his evil deed. Prominent among these were Arundel—who himself had aimed at the Queen's hand—Norfolk and Pembroke, and behind them was a great mass of the people. Indignation against Lord Robert was blazing out, fanned by such screaming preachers as Lever, who, from the London pulpits, denounced the projected marriage, hinting darkly at the truth of Amy Dudley's death.

What was hinted at home was openly expressed abroad, and in Paris Mary Stuart ventured a cruel witticism that Elizabeth was to conserve in her memory: "The Queen of England," she said, "is about to marry her horse-keeper, who has killed his wife to make a place for her."

Yet Elizabeth persisted in her intent to marry Dudley, until the sober Cecil conveyed to her towards the end of that month of September some notion of the rebellion that was smouldering.

She flared out at him, of course. But he stood his ground.

"There is," he reminded her, "this unfortunate matter of a prophecy, as the Bishop of Aquila persists in calling it."

"God's Body! Is the rogue blabbing?"

"What else did your Majesty expect from a man smarting under a sense of injury? He has published it broadcast that on the day before Lady Robert broke her neck, you told him that she was dead or nearly so. And he argues from it a guilty foreknowledge on your Majesty's part of what was planned."

"A guilty foreknowledge!" She almost choked in rage, and then fell to swearing as furiously in that moment as old King Harry at his worst.

"Madame!" he cried, shaken by her vehemence. "I but report the phrase he uses. It is not mine."

"Do you believe it?"

"I do not, madame. If I did I should not be here at present."

"Does any subject of mine believe it?"

"They suspend their judgment. They wait to learn the truth from the sequel."

"You mean?"

"That if your motive prove to be such as de Quadra and others allege, they will be in danger of believing."

"Be plain, man, in God's name. What exactly is alleged?"

He obeyed her very fully.

"That my lord contrived the killing of his wife so that he might have liberty to marry your Majesty, and that your Majesty was privy to the deed." He spoke out boldly, and hurried on before she could let loose her wrath. "It is still in your power, madame, to save your honour, which is now in peril. But there is only one way in which you can accomplish it. If you put from you all thought of marrying Lord Robert, England will believe that de Quadra and those others lied. If you persist and carry out your intention, you proclaim the truth of his report; and you see what must inevitably follow."

She saw indeed, and, seeing, was afraid.

Within a few hours of that interview she delivered her answer to Cecil, which was that she had no intention of marrying Dudley.

Because of her fear she saved her honour by sacrificing her heart, by renouncing marriage with the only man she could have taken for her mate of all who had wooed her. Yet the wound of that renunciation was slow to heal. She trifled with the notion of other marriages, but ever and anon, in her despair, perhaps, we see her turning longing eyes towards the handsome Lord Robert, later made Earl of Leicester. Once, indeed, some six years after Amy's death, there was again some talk of her marrying him, which was quickly quelled by a reopening of the question of how Amy died. Between these two, between the fulfilment of her desire and his ambition, stood the irreconcilable ghost of his poor murdered wife.

Perhaps it was some thought of this that found expression in her passionate outburst when she learnt of the birth of Mary Stuart's child: "The Queen of Scots is lighter of a fair son; and I am but a barren stock."



VII. SIR JUDAS

The Betrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh



Sir Walter was met on landing at Plymouth from his ill-starred voyage to El Dorado by Sir Lewis Stukeley, which was but natural, seeing that Sir Lewis was not only Vice-Admiral of Devon, but also Sir Walter's very good friend and kinsman.

If Sir Walter doubted whether it was in his quality as kinsman or as Vice-Admiral that Sir Lewis met him, the cordiality of the latter's embrace and the noble entertainment following at the house of Sir Christopher Hare, near the port, whither Sir Lewis conducted him, set this doubt at rest and relighted the lamp of hope in the despairing soul of our adventurer. In Sir Lewis he saw only his kinsman—his very good friend and kinsman, to insist upon Stukeley's own description of himself—at a time when of all others in his crowded life he needed the support of a kinsman and the guidance of a friend.

You know the story of this Sir Walter, who had been one of the brightest ornaments of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and might have added lustre to that of King James, had not his Sowship—to employ the title bestowed upon that prince by his own queen—been too mean of soul to appreciate the man's great worth. Courtier, philosopher, soldier, man of letters and man of action alike, Ralegh was at once the greatest prose-writer, and one of the greatest captains of his age, the last survivor of that glorious company—whose other members were Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins—that had given England supremacy upon the seas, that had broken the power and lowered the pride of Spain.

His was a name that had resounded, to the honour and glory of England, throughout the world, a name that, like Drake's, was a thing of hate and terror to King Philip and his Spaniards; yet the King of Scots, unclean of body and of mind, who had succeeded to the throne of Elizabeth, must affect ignorance of that great name which shall never die while England lives.

When the splendid courtier stood before him—for at fifty Sir Walter was still handsome of person and magnificent of Apparel—James looked him over and inquired who he might be. When they had told him:

"I've rawly heard of thee," quoth the royal punster, who sought by such atrocities of speech to be acclaimed a wit.

It was ominous of what must follow, and soon thereafter you see this great and gallant gentleman arrested on a trumped-up charge of high treason, bullied, vituperated, and insulted by venal, peddling lawyers, and, finally, although his wit and sincerity had shattered every fragment of evidence brought against him, sentenced to death. Thus far James went; but he hesitated to go further, hesitated to carry out the sentence. Sir Walter had too many friends in England then; the memory of his glorious deeds was still too fresh in the public mind, and execution might have been attended by serious consequences for King James. Besides, one at least of the main objects was achieved. Sir Walter's broad acres were confiscate by virtue of that sentence, and King James wanted the land—filched thus from one who was England's pride—to bestow it upon one of those golden calves of his who were England's shame.

"I maun hae the land for Carr. I maun hae it," was his brazen and peevish answer to an appeal against the confiscation.

For thirteen years Sir Walter lay in the Tower, under that sentence of death passed in 1603, enjoying after a season a certain liberty, visited there by his dear lady and his friends, among whom was Henry, Prince of Wales, who did not hesitate to publish that no man but his father—whom he detested—would keep such a bird in a cage. He beguiled the time in literary and scientific pursuits, distilling his essences and writing that stupendous work of his, "The History of the World." Thus old age crept upon him; but far from quenching the fires of enterprise within his adventurer's soul, it brought a restlessness that urged him at last to make a bid for liberty. Despairing of winning it from the clemency of James, he applied his wits to extracting it from the King's cupidity.

Throughout his life, since the day when first he had brought himself to the notice of a Queen by making of his cloak a carpet for her feet, he had retained side by side with the dignity of the sage and the greatness of the hero, the craft and opportunism of the adventurer. His opportunity now was the straitened condition of the royal treasury, a hint of which had been let fall by Winwood the Secretary of State. He announced at once that he knew of a gold mine in Guiana, the El Dorado of the Spaniards.

On his return from a voyage to Guiana in 1595, he had written of it thus:

"There the common soldier shall fight for gold instead of pence, pay himself with plates half a foot broad, whereas he breaks his bones in other wars for provant and penury Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru."

Winwood now reminded him that as a consequence many expeditions had gone out, but failed to discover any of these things.

"That," said Ralegh, "is because those adventurers were ignorant alike of the country and of the art of conciliating its inhabitants. Were I permitted to go, I would make Guiana to England what Peru has been to Spain."

That statement, reported to James in his need, was enough to fire his cupidity, and when Ralegh had further added that he would guarantee to the Crown one-fifth of the treasure without asking any contribution towards the adventure either in money or in ships, he was permitted to come forth and prepare for the expedition.

His friends came to his assistance, and in March of 1617 he set sail for El Dorado with a well-manned and well-equipped fleet of fourteen ships, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke standing sureties for his return.

From the outset the fates were unpropitious. Disaster closed the adventure. Gondomar, the Ambassador of Spain at Whitehall, too well-informed of what was afoot, had warned his master. Spanish ships waited to frustrate Sir Walter, who was under pledge to avoid all conflict with the forces of King Philip. But conflict there was, and bloodshed in plenty, about the city of Manoa, which the Spaniards held as the key to the country into which the English adventurers sought to penetrate. Among the slain were the Governor of Manoa, who was Gondomar's own brother, and Sir Walter's eldest son.

To Ralegh, waiting at the mouth of the Orinoco, came his beaten forces in retreat, with the terrible news of a happening that meant his ruin. Half-maddened, his anguish increased by the loss of his boy, he upbraided them so fiercely that Keymis, who had been in charge of the expedition, shut himself up in his cabin and shot himself with a pocket-pistol. Mutiny followed, and Whitney—most trusted of Sir Walter's captains—set sail for England, being followed by six other ships of that fleet, which meanwhile had been reduced to twelve. With the remaining five the stricken Sir Walter had followed more at leisure. What need to hurry? Disgrace, and perhaps death, awaited him in England. He knew the power of Spain with James, who was so set upon a Spanish marriage for his heir, knew Spain's hatred of himself, and what eloquence it would gather in the mouth of Gondomar, intent upon avenging his brother's death.

He feared the worst, and so was glad upon landing to have by him a kinsman upon whom he could lean for counsel and guidance in this the darkest hour of all his life. Sitting late that night in the library of Sir Christopher Hare's house, Sir Walter told his cousin in detail the story of his misadventure, and confessed to his misgivings.

"My brains are broken," was his cry.

Stukeley combed his beard in thought. He had little comfort to offer.

"It was not expected," said he, "that you would return.

"Not expected?" Sir Walter's bowed white head was suddenly flung back. Indignation blazed in the eyes that age had left undimmed. "What act in all my life justified the belief I should be false to honour? My danger here was made quite plain, and Captain King would have had me steer a course for France, where I had found a welcome and a harbour. But to consent I must have been false to my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who were sureties to the King for my return. Life is still sweet to me, despite my three-score years and more, but honour is sweeter still."

And then, because life was sweet, he bluntly asked his cousin: "What is the King's intent by me?"

"Nay, now," said Stukeley, "who shall know what passes in the King's mind? From the signs, I judge your case to be none so desperate. You have good friends in plenty, among whom, although the poorest, count myself the first. Anon, when you are rested, we'll to London by easy stages, baiting at the houses of your friends, and enlisting their good offices on your behalf."

Ralegh took counsel on the matter with Captain King, a bluff, tawny-bearded seaman, who was devoted to him body and soul.

"Sir Lewis proposes it, eh?" quoth the hardy seaman. "And Sir Lewis is Vice-Admiral of Devon? He is not by chance bidden to escort you to London?"

The Captain, clearly, had escaped the spell of Stukeley's affability. Sir Walter was indignant. He had never held his kinsman in great esteem, and had never been on the best of terms with him in the past. Nevertheless, he was very far from suspecting him of what King implied. To convince him that he did Sir Lewis an injustice, Ralegh put the blunt question to his kinsman in King's presence.

"Nay," said Sir Lewis, "I am not yet bidden to escort you. But as Vice-Admiral of Devon I may at any moment be so bidden. It were wiser, I hold, not to await such an order. Though even if it come," he made haste to add, "you may still count upon my friendship. I am your kinsman first, and Vice-Admiral after."

With a smile that irradiated his handsome, virile countenance, Sir Walter held out his hand to clasp his cousin's in token of appreciation. Captain King expressed no opinion save what might be conveyed in a grunt and a shrug.

Guided now unreservedly by his cousin's counsel, Sir Walter set out with him upon that journey to London. Captain King went with them, as well as Sir Walter's body-servant, Cotterell, and a Frenchman named Manourie, who had made his first appearance in the Plymouth household on the previous day. Stukeley explained the fellow as a gifted man of medicine, whom he had sent for to cure him of a trivial but inconvenient ailment by which he was afflicted.

Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, they came at last to Brentford. Sir Walter, had he followed his own bent, would have journeyed more slowly still, for in a measure, as he neared London, apprehensions of what might await him there grew ever darker. He spoke of them to King, and the blunt Captain said nothing to dispel them.

"You are being led like a sheep to the shambles," he declared, "and you go like a sheep. You should have landed in France, where you have friends. Even now it is not too late. A ship could be procured..."

"And my honour could be sunk at sea," Sir Walter harshly concluded, in reproof of such counsel.

But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a visitor, who brought him the like advice in rather different terms. This was De Chesne, the secretary of the French envoy, Le Clerc. Cordially welcomed by Ralegh, the Frenchman expressed his deep concern to see Sir Walter under arrest.

"You conclude too hastily," laughed Sir Walter.

"Monsieur, I do not conclude. I speak of what I am inform'."

"Misinformed, sir. I am not a prisoner—at least, not yet," he added, with a sigh. "I travel of my own free will to London with my good friend and kinsman Stukeley to lay the account of my voyage before the King."

"Of your own free will? You travel of your own frets will? And you are not a prisoner? Ha!" There was bitter mockery in De Chesne's short laugh. "C'est bien drole!" And he explained: "Milord the Duke o Buckingham, he has write in his master's name to the ambassador Gondomar that you are taken and held at the disposal of the King of Spain. Gondomar is to inform him whether King Philip wish that you be sent to Spain to essay the justice of his Catholic Majesty, or that you suffer here. Meanwhile your quarters are being made ready in the Tower. Yet you tell me you are not prisoner! You go of your own free will to London. Sir Walter, do not be deceive'. If you reach London, you are lost."

Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter's last illusion. Yet desperately he clung to the fragments of it. The envoy's secretary must be at fault.

"'Tis yourself are at fault, Sir Walter, in that you trust those about you," the Frenchman insisted.

Sir Walter stared at him, frowning. "D'ye mean Stukeley?" quoth he, half-indignant already at the mere suggestion.

"Sir Lewis, he is your kinsman." De Chesne shrugged. "You should know your family better than I. But who is this Manourie who accompanies you? Where is he come from? What you know of him?"

Sir Walter confessed that he knew nothing.

"But I know much. He is a fellow of evil reputation. A spy who does not scruple to sell his own people. And I know that letters of commission from the Privy Council for your arrest were give' to him in London ten days ago. Whether those letters were to himself, or he was just the messenger to another, imports nothing. The fact is everything. The warrant against you exists, and it is in the hands of one or another of those that accompany you. I say no more. As I have tol' you, you should know your own family. But of this be sure, they mean that you go to the Tower, and so to your death. And now, Sir Walter, if I show you the disease I also bring the remedy. I am command' by my master to offer you a French barque which is in the Thames, and a safe conduct to the Governor of Calais. In France you will find safety and honour, as your worth deserve'."

Up sprang Sir Walter from his chair, and flung off the cloak of thought in which he had been mantled.

"Impossible," he said. "Impossible! There is my plighted word to return, and there are my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, who are sureties for me. I cannot leave them to suffer by my default."

"They will not suffer at all," De Chesne assured him. He was very well informed. "King James has yielded to Spain partly because he fears, partly because he will have a Spanish marriage for Prince Charles, and will do nothing to trouble his good relations with King Philip. But, after all, you have friends, whom his Majesty also fears. If you escape' you would resolve all his perplexities. I do not believe that any obstacle will be offer' to your escape—else why they permit you to travel thus without any guard, and to retain your sword?"

Half distracted as he was by what he had learnt, yet Sir Walter clung stoutly and obstinately to what he believed to be the only course for a man of honour. And so he dismissed De Chesne with messages of gratitude but refusal to his master, and sent for Captain King. Together they considered all that the secretary had stated, and King agreed with De Chesne's implied opinion that it was Sir Lewis himself who held the warrant.

They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed him with it. Sir Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when King thereupon charged him with deceit he showed no anger, but only the profoundest grief. He sank into a chair, and took his head in his hands.

"What could I do? What could I do?" he cried. "The warrant came in the very moment we were setting out. At first I thought of telling you; and then I bethought me that to do so would be but to trouble your mind, without being able to offer you help."

Sir Walter understood what was implied. "Did you not say," he asked, "that you were my kinsman first and Vice-Admiral of Devon after?"

"Ay—and so I am. Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral, which has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape, I'd never hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as closely as he watches you, and would baulk us at the last. And that is why I have held my peace on the score of this warrant. What can it help that I should trouble you with the matter until at the same time I can offer you some way out?"

"The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit," said the downright King.

"So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them," returned Sir Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first argument, using now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was convinced. He was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he stood. He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in an extremity. Manourie was the difficulty. But in his time he had known many of these agents who, without sentimental interest and purely for the sake of gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had he known one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he desired Manourie's company in the room above stairs that had been set apart for Sir Walter's use. Facing him across the table at which both were seated, Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the board, and, suddenly opening it, dazzled the Frenchman's beady eyes with the jewel sparkling in his palm.

"Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?"

Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, sharp-featured fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into Sir Walter's grimly smiling eyes, then again at the white diamond, from which the candlelight was striking every colour of the rainbow. He made a shrewd estimate of its price, and shook his black head. He had quite recovered from the shock of Sir Walter's question.

"Not half as much," he confessed, with impudence.

"Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me," said the knight. "This jewel is to be earned."

The agent's eyes flickered; he passed his tongue over his lips. "As how?" quoth he.

"Briefly thus: I have but learnt of the trammel in which I am taken. I must have time to concert my measures of escape, and time is almost at an end. You are skilled in drugs, so my kinsman tells me. Can you so drug me as to deceive physicians that I am in extremis?"

Manourie considered awhile.

"I... I think I could," he answered presently.

"And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say.. two such stones?"

The venal knave gasped in amazement. This was not generosity; it was prodigality. He recovered again, and swore himself Sir Walter's.

"About it, then." Sir Walter rolled the gem across the board into the clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it. "Keep that in earnest. The other will follow when we have cozened them."

Next morning Sir Walter could not resume the journey. When Cotterell went to dress him he found his master taken with vomits, and reeling like a drunkard. The valet ran to fetch Sir Lewis, and when they returned together they found Sir Walter on all fours gnawing the rushes on the floor, his face livid and horribly distorted, his brow glistening with sweat.

Stukeley, in alarm, ordered Cotterell to get his master back to bed and to foment him, which was done. But on the next day there was no improvement, and on the third things were in far more serious case. The skin of his brow and arms and breast was inflamed, and covered with horrible purple blotches—the result of an otherwise harmless ointment with which the French empiric had supplied him.

When Stukeley beheld him thus disfigured, and lying apparently inert and but half-conscious upon his bed, he backed away in terror. The Vice-Admiral had seen afore-time the horrible manifestations of the plague, and could not be mistaken here. He fled from the infected air of his kinsman's chamber, and summoned what physicians were available to pronounce and prescribe. The physicians came—three in number—but manifested no eagerness to approach the patient closely. The mere sight of him was enough to lead them to the decision that he was afflicted with the plague in a singularly virulent form.

Presently one of them plucked up courage so far as to feel the pulse of the apparently delirious patient. Its feebleness confirmed his diagnosis; moreover the hand he held was cold and turgid. He was not to know that Sir Walter had tightly wrapped about his upper arm the ribbon from his poniard, and so he was entirely deceived.

The physicians withdrew, and delivered their verdict, whereupon Sir Lewis at once sent word of it to the Privy Council.

That afternoon the faithful Captain King, sorely afflicted by the news, came to visit his master, and was introduced to Sir Walter's chamber by Manourie, who was in attendance upon him. To the seaman's amazement he found Sir Walter sitting up in bed, surveying in a hand-mirror a face that was horrible beyond description with the complacent smile of one who takes satisfaction in his appearance. Yet there was no fevered madness in the smiling eyes. They were alive with intelligence, amounting, indeed, to craft.

"Ah, King!" was the glad welcome "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay, and others as memorable who have descended to such artifice."

Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to excuse an unworthiness of which he was conscious.

"Artifice?" quoth King, aghast. "Is this artifice?"

"Ay—a hedge against my enemies, who will be afraid to approach me."

King sat himself down by his master's bed. "A better hedge against your enemies, Sir Walter, would have been the strip of sea 'twixt here and France. Would to Heaven you had done as I advised ere you set foot in this ungrateful land."

"The omission may be repaired," said Sir Walter.

Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to him, Sir Walter had been reconsidering De Chesne's assurance touching my Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, and he had come to conclude—the more readily, perhaps because it was as he would have it—that De Chesne was right; that to break faith with them were no such great matter after all, nor one for which they would be called upon to suffer. And so, now, when it was all but too late, he yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and consented to save himself by flight to France. King was to go about the business of procuring a ship without loss of time. Yet there was no need of desperate haste, as was shown when presently orders came to Brentford for the disposal of the prisoner. The King, who was at Salisbury, desired that Sir Walter should be conveyed to his own house in London. Stukeley reported this to him, proclaiming it a sign of royal favour. Sir Walter was not deceived. He knew the reason to be fear lest he should infect the Tower with the plague by which he was reported stricken.

So the journey was resumed, and Sir Walter was brought to London, and safely bestowed in his own house, but ever in the care of his loving friend and kinsman. Manourie's part being fulfilled and the aim accomplished, Sir Walter completed the promised payment by bestowing upon him the second diamond—a form of eminently portable currency with which the knight was well supplied. On the morrow Manourie was gone, dismissed as a consequence of the part he had played.

It was Stukeley who told Sir Walter this—a very well informed and injured Stukeley, who asked to know what he had done to forfeit the knight's confidence that behind his back Sir Walter secretly concerted means of escape. Had his cousin ceased to trust him?

Sir Walter wondered. Looking into that lean, crafty face, he considered King's unquenchable mistrust of the man, bethought him of his kinsman's general neediness, remembered past events that shed light upon his ways and nature, and began now at last to have a sense of the man's hypocrisy and double-dealing. Yet he reasoned in regard to him precisely as he had reasoned in regard to Manourie. The fellow was acquisitive, and therefore corruptible. If, indeed, he was so base that he had been bought to betray Sir Walter, then he could be bought again to betray those who had so bought him.

"Nay, nay," said Sir Walter easily. "It is not lack of trust in you, my good friend. But you are the holder of an office, and knowing as I do the upright honesty of your character I feared to embarrass you with things whose very knowledge must give you the parlous choice of being false to that office or false to me."

Stukeley broke forth into imprecations. He was, he vowed, the most accursed and miserable of men that such a task as this should have fallen to his lot. And he was a poor man, too, he would have his cousin remember. It was unthinkable that he should use the knowledge he had gained to attempt to frustrate Sir Walter's plans of escape to France. And this notwithstanding that if Sir Walter escaped, it is certain he would lose his office of Vice-Admiral and the six hundred pounds he had paid for it.

"As to that, you shall be at no loss," Sir Walter assured him. "I could not suffer it. I pledge you my honour, Lewis, that you shall have a thousand pounds from my wife on the day that I am safely landed in France or Holland. Meanwhile, in earnest of what is to come, here is a toy of value for you." And he presented Sir Lewis with a jewel of price, a great ruby encrusted in diamonds.

Thus reassured that he would be immune from pecuniary loss, Sir Lewis was ready to throw himself whole-heartedly into Sir Walter's plans, and to render him all possible assistance. True, this assistance was a costly matter; there was this person to be bought and that one; there were expenses here and expenses there, incurred by Sir Lewis on his kinsman's behalf; and there were odd presents, too, which Stukeley seemed to expect and which Sir Walter could not deny him. He had no illusions now that King had been right; that here he was dealing with a rogue who would exact the uttermost farthing for his services, but he was gratified at the shrewdness with which he had taken his cousin's measure, and did not grudge the bribes by which he was to escape the scaffold.

De Chesne came again to the house in London, to renew his master's offer of a ship to carry Sir Walter overseas, and such other assistance as Sir Walter might require But by now the knight's arrangements were complete. His servant Cotterell had come to inform him that his own boatswain, now in London, was the owner of a ketch, at present lying at Tilbury, admirably suited for the enterprise and entirely at Sir Walter's disposal. It had been decided, then, with the agreement of Captain King, that they should avail themselves of this; and accordingly Cotterell was bidden desire the boatswain to have the craft made ready for sea at once. In view of this, and anxious to avoid unnecessarily compromising the French envoy, Sir Walter gratefully declined the latter's offer.

And so we come at last to that July evening appointed for the flight. Ralegh, who, having for some time discarded the use of Manourie's ointment, had practically recovered his normal appearance, covering his long white hair under a Spanish hat, and muffling the half of his face in the folds of a cloak, came to Wapping Stairs—that ill-omened place of execution of pirates and sea-rovers—accompanied by Cotterell, who carried the knight's cloak-bag, and by Sir Lewis and Sir Lewis's son. Out of solicitude for their dear friend and kinsman, the Stukeleys could not part from him until he was safely launched upon his voyage. At the head of the stairs they were met by Captain King; at the foot of them a boat was waiting, as concerted, the boatswain at the tiller.

King greeted them with an air of obvious relief.

"You feared perhaps we should not come," said Stukeley, with a sneer at the Captain's avowed mistrust of him. "Yet now, I trust, you'll do me the justice to admit that I have shown myself an honest man."

The uncompromising King looked at him and frowned, misliking the words.

"I hope that you'll continue so," he answered stiffly.

They went down the slippery steps to the boat, and then the shore glided slowly past them as they pushed off into the stream of the ebbing tide.

A moment later, King, whose suspicious eyes kept a sharp look-out, observed another boat put off some two hundred yards higher up the river. At first he saw it breast the stream as if proceeding towards London Bridge, then abruptly swing about and follow them. Instantly he drew the attention of Sir Walter to that pursuing wherry.

"What's this?" quoth Sir Walter harshly. "Are we betrayed?"

The watermen, taking fright at the words, hung now upon their oars.

"Put back," Sir Walter bade them. "I'll not betray my friends to no purpose. Put back, and let us home again."

"Nay, now," said Stukeley gravely, himself watching the wherry. "We are more than a match for them in oars, even if their purpose be such as you suspect—for which suspicion, when all is said, there is no ground. On then!" He addressed himself to the watermen, whipping out a pistol, and growing truculent in mien and voice. "To your oars! Row, you dogs, or I'll pistol you where you sit."

The men bent their backs forthwith, and the boat swept on. But Sir Walter was still full of apprehensions, still questioning the wisdom of keeping to their down-stream course if they were being followed.

"But are we followed?" cried the impatient Sir Lewis. "'Sdeath, cousin, is not the river a highway for all the world to use, and must every wherry that chances to go our way be in pursuit of us? If you are to halt at every shadow, faith, you'll never accomplish anything. I vow I am unfortunate in having a friend whom I would save so full of doubts and fears."

Sir Walter gave him reason, and even King came to conclude that he had suspected him unjustly, whilst the rowers, under Stukeley's suasion, now threw themselves heartily into their task, and onward sped the boat through the deepening night, taking but little account of that other wherry that hung ever in their wake. In this wise they came at length to Greenwich on the last of the ebb. But here finding the water beginning to grow against them, and wearied by the exertion into which Stukeley's enthusiasm had flogged them, the watermen paused again, declaring that they could not reach Gravesend before morning.

Followed a brief discussion, at the end of which Sir Walter bade them put him ashore at Purfleet.

"And that's the soundest counsel," quoth the boatswain. "For at Purfleet we can get horses on to Tilbury."

Stukeley was of the same opinion; but not so the more practical Captain King.

"'Tis useless," he declared to them. "At this hour how shall you get horses to go by land?"

And now, Sir Walter, looking over his shoulder, saw the other wherry bearing down upon them through the faintly opalescent mists of dawn. A hail came to them across the water.

"Oh, 'Sdeath! We are betrayed!" cried Ralegh bitterly, and Stukeley swore more fiercely still. Sir Walter turned to him. "Put ashore," he said shortly, "and let us home."

"Ay, perhaps 'twere best. For to-night there's an end to the enterprise, and if I am taken in your company now, what shall be said to me for this active assistance in your escape?" His voice was gloomy, his face drawn and white.

"Could you not plead that you had but pretended to go with me to seize on my private papers?" suggested the ingenious mind of Ralegh.

"I could. But shall I be believed? Shall I?" His loom was deepening to despair.

Ralegh was stricken almost with remorse on his cousin's account. His generous heart was now more concerned with the harm to his friends than with his own doom. He desired to make amends to Stukeley, but had no means save such as lay in the power of that currency he used. Having naught else to give, he must give that. He plunged his hand into an inner pocket, and brought forth a handful of jewels, which he thrust upon his kinsman.

"Courage," he urged him. "Up now, and we may yet win out and home, so that all will be well with you at least, and you shall not suffer for your friendship to me."

Stukeley embraced him then, protesting his love and desire to serve him.

They came to land at last, just below Greenwich bridge, and almost at the same moment the other wherry grounded immediately above them. Men sprang from her, with the obvious intent of cutting off their retreat.

"Too late!" said Ralegh, and sighed, entirely without passion now that the dice had fallen and showed that the game was lost. "You must act on my suggestion to explain your presence, Lewis."

"Indeed, there is no other course," Sir Lewis agreed. "And you are in the same case, Captain King. You must confess that you joined with me but to betray Sir Walter. I'll bear you out. Thus, each supporting the other..."

"I'll roast in Hell before I brand myself a traitor," roared the Captain furiously. "And were you an honest man, Sir Lewis, you'ld understand my meaning."

"So, so?" said Stukeley, in a quiet, wicked voice. And it was observed that his son and one or two of the watermen had taken their stand beside him as if in readiness for action. "Why, then, since you will have it so, Captain, I arrest you, in the King's name, on a charge of abetting treason."

The Captain fell back a step, stricken a moment by sheer amazement. Then he groped for a pistol to do at last what he realized he should have done long since. Instantly he was overpowered. It was only then that Sir Walter understood the thing that had happened, and with understanding came fury. The old adventurer flung back his cloak, and snatched at his rapier to put it through the vitals of his dear friend and kinsman. But he was too late. Hands seized upon him, and he found himself held by the men from the wherry, confronted by a Mr. William Herbert, whom he knew for Stukeley's cousin, and he heard Mr. Herbert formally asking him for the surrender of his sword.

Instantly he governed himself, repressed his fury. He looked coldly at his kinsman, whose face showed white and evil in the growing light of the early summer dawn "Sir Lewis," was all he said, "these actions will not turn out to your credit."

He had no illusion left. His understanding was now a very full one. His dear friend and kinsman had played him false throughout, intending first to drain him of his resources before finally flinging the empty husk to the executioner. Manourie had been in the plot; he had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds; and Sir Walter's own servant Cotterell had done no less. Amongst them they had "cozened the great cozener"—to use Stukeley's own cynical expression. Even so, it was only on his trial that Sir Walter plumbed the full depth of Stukeley's baseness; for it was only then he learnt that his kinsman had been armed by a warrant of immunity to assist his projects of escape, so that he might the more effectively incriminate and betray him; and Sir Walter discovered also that the ship in which he had landed, and other matters, were to provide additional Judas' fees to this acquisitive betrayer.

If to escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to artifices unworthy the great hero that he was, now that all hope was lost he conducted himself with a dignity and cheerfulness beyond equal. So calm and self-possessed and masterly was his defence from the charge of piracy preferred at the request of Spain, and so shrewd in its inflaming appeal to public opinion, that his judges were constrained to abandon that line of prosecution, and could discover no way of giving his head to King James save by falling back upon the thirteen-year old sentence of death against him. Of this they now ordered execution.

Never a man who loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it met death as blithely. He dressed himself for the scaffold with that elegance and richness which all his life he had observed. He wore a ruff band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches and ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his plumed hat he covered his white locks with a wrought nightcap. This last he bestowed on his way to the scaffold upon a bald-headed old man who had come to take a last look of him, with the observation that he was more in need of it than himself. When he had removed it, it was observed that his hair was not curled as usual. This was a matter that had fretted his barber Peter in the prison of the Gatehouse at Westminster that morning. But Sir Walter had put him off with a laugh and a jest.