Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their hands pinioned behind them—Blake’s arm was healed by now—stood Mr. Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was very fearful—having through his connection with the Cause every reason so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous. It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously, thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
“We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,” he staggered Blake by answering. “We have learnt the reason why you left London and your creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of battered fortunes.”
Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. “I’m forejudged, it, seems,” he made answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his judges. “May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?”
“You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,” put in Phelips, whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. “Depend on that. Not only shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by him. Meanwhile, sirs”—and his glance strayed from Blake’s flushed and angry countenance to Richard’s, pale and timid—“meanwhile, are we to understand that you deny the charge?”
“I have heard none as yet,” said Sir Rowland insolently.
Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. “Read them the indictment,” said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners, whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took up. It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of plotting against His Majesty’s life and throne and the peace of His Majesty’s realms.
Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
Albemarle looked at him darkly. “I do thank God,” said he, “that through Mr. Westmacott’s folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this fire ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?”
“I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie,” said Sir Rowland bluntly: “I never plotted in my life against anything but my own prosperity, nor against any man but myself.”
Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott. “And you, sir?” he said. “Are you as stubborn as your friend?”
“I incontinently deny the charge,” said Richard, and he contrived that his voice should ring bold and resolute.
“A charge built on air,” sneered Blake, “which the first breath of truth should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay bare their falseness? It should not be difficult.”
“Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?” quoth the Duke, and smote a paper sharply.
Blake shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?” he asked. “I say I have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.”
“Call Mr. Trenchard,” said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of Mr. Trenchard.
Colonel Luttrell—lean and wiry—now addressed the prisoners, Blake more particularly. “Still,” said he, “you will admit that such a plot may, indeed, exist?”
“It may, indeed, for aught I know—or care,” he added incautiously.
Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. “By God!” he cried in that deep booming voice of his, “there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty’s life and crown! Yet you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.”
Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he floundered further into the mire.
“I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything,” he answered hotly. “It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your Grace’s beliefs and opinions.”
“By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!” cried Albemarle.
Sir Rowland’s eyes blazed. “Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall ask Your Grace to unsay that word.”
Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked smile on his wizened face.
Leaving Blake’s veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old rake. “These rogues,” said he, pointing to the prisoners, “demand proofs ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment.”
“Those proofs,” said Trenchard, “are already in Your Grace’s hands.”
“Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.”
Trenchard bowed. “Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?”
“If you will condescend so far,” said Albemarle.
“Blister me…!” roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
“By God, sir!” he cried, “I’ll have no such disrespectful language here. You’ll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you damned rogue, or by God! I’ll commit you forthwith.”
“I will endeavour,” said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, “to follow Your Grace’s lofty example.”
“You will do well, sir,” said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard should laugh at such a moment.
“I was about to protest, sir,” said Blake, “that it is monstrous I should be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest acquaintance with me.”
Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. “Admitted, sir,” said he. “What should I be doing in bad company?” An answer this that set Albemarle bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. “I will begin, an it please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony can be corroborated by that of other witnesses.”
Colonel