She drew a ring from her finger and slipped it on to one of his.
“Be this the pledge, then,” she said; “and so content and rest yourself.”
With that she broke from him, white and scared, and reached the door. Yet with her hand upon the latch she paused. Looking at him she saw that he was smiling, and perhaps horror of her betrayal of him overwhelmed her. It must be that she then desired to warn him, yet with Bothwell within earshot she realized that any warning must precipitate the tragedy, with direst consequences to Bothwell and herself.
To conquer her weakness, she thought of David Rizzio, whom Darnley had murdered almost at her feet, and whom this night was to avenge. She thought of the Judas part that he had played in that affair, and sought persuasion that it was fitting he should now be paid in kind. Yet, very woman that she was, failing to find any such persuasion, she found instead in the very thought of Rizzio the very means to convey her warning.
Standing tense and white by the door, regarding him with dilating eyes, she spoke her last words to him.
“It would be just about this time last year that Davie was slain,” she said, and on that passed out to the waiting Bothwell.
Once on the stairs she paused and set a hand upon the shoulder of the stalwart Borderer.
“Must it be? Oh, must it be?” she whispered fearfully.
She caught the flash of his eyes in the half gloom as he leaned over her, his arm about her waist drawing her to him.
“Is it not just? Is it not full merited?” he asked her.
“And yet I would that we did not profit by it,” she complained.
“Shall we pity him on that account?” he asked, and laughed softly and shortly. “Come away,” he added abruptly. “They wait for you!” And so, by the suasion of his arm and his imperious will, she was swept onward along the road of her destiny.
Outside the horses were ready. There was a little group of gentlemen to escort her, and half a dozen servants with lighted torches, whilst Lady Reres was in waiting. A man stood forward to assist her to mount, his face and hands so blackened by gunpowder that for a moment she failed to recognize him. She laughed nervously when he named himself.
“Lord, Paris, how begrimed you are!” she cried; and, mounting, rode away towards Holyrood with her torchbearers and attendants.
In the room above, Darnley lay considering her last words. He turned them over in his thoughts, assured by the tone she had used and how she had looked that they contained some message.
“It would be just about this time last year that Davie was slain.”
In themselves, those words were not strictly accurate. It wanted yet a month to the anniversary of Rizzio’s death. And why, at parting, should she have reminded him of that which she had agreed should be forgotten? Instantly came the answer that she sought to warn him that retribution was impending. He thought again of the rumours that he had heard of a bond signed at Craigmillar; he recalled Lord Robert’s warning to him, afterwards denied.
He recalled her words to himself at the time of Rizzio’s death: “Consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently.” And further, he remembered her cry at once agonized and fiercely vengeful: “Jamais, jamais je n’oublierai.”
His terrors mounted swiftly, to be quieted again at last when he looked at the ring she had put upon his finger in pledge of her renewed affection. The past was dead and buried, surely. Though danger might threaten, she would guard him against it, setting her love about him like a panoply of steel. When she came tomorrow, he would question her closely, and she should be more frank and open with him, and tell him all. Meanwhile, he would take his precautions for tonight.
He sent his page to make fast all doors. The youth went and did as he was bidden, with the exception of the door that led to the garden. It had no bolts, and the key was missing; yet, seeing his master’s nervous, excited state, he forbore from any mention of that circumstance when presently he returned to him.
Darnley requested a book of Psalms, that he might read himself to sleep. The page dozed in a chair, and so the hours passed; and at last the King himself fell into a light slumber. Out of this he started suddenly at a little before two o’clock, and sat upright in bed, alarmed without knowing why, listening with straining ears and throbbing pulses.
He caught a repetition of the sound that had aroused him, a sound akin to that which had drawn his attention earlier, when Mary had been with him. It came up faintly from the room immediately beneath: her room. Some one was moving there, he thought. Then, as he continued to listen, all became quiet again, save his fears, which would not be quieted. He extinguished the light, slipped from the bed, and, crossing to the window, peered out into the close that was faintly illumined by a moon in its first quarter. A shadow moved, he thought. He watched with increasing panic for confirmation, and presently saw that he had been right. Not one, but several shadows were shifting there among the trees. Shadows of men, they were, and as he peered, he saw one that went running from the house across the lawn and joined the others, now clustered together in a group. What could be their purpose here? In the silence, he seemed to hear again the echo of Mary’s last words to him:
“It would be just about this time last year that Davie was slain.”
In terror, he groped his way to the chair where the page slept and shook the lad vigorously.
“Afoot, boy!” he said, in a hoarse whisper. He had meant to shout it, but his voice failed him, his windpipe clutched by panic. “Afoot—we are beset by enemies!”
At once the youth was wide awake, and together the King just in his shirt as he was—they made their way from the room in the dark, groping their way, and so reached the windows at the back. Darnley opened one of these very softly, then sent the boy back for a sheet. Making this fast, they descended by it to the garden, and started towards the wall, intending to climb it, that they might reach the open.
The boy led the way, and the King followed, his teeth chattering as much from the cold as from the terror that possessed him. And then, quite suddenly, without the least warning, the ground, it seemed to them, heaved under their feet, and they were flung violently forward on their faces. A great blaze rent the darkness of the night, accompanied by the thunders of an explosion so terrific that it seemed as if the whole world must have been shattered by it.
For some instants the King and his page lay half stunned where they had fallen, and well might it have been for them had they so continued. But Darnley, recovering, staggered to his feet, pulling the boy up with him and supporting him. Then, as he began to move, he heard a soft whistle in the gloom behind him. Over his shoulder he looked towards the house, to behold a great, smoking gap now yawning in it. Through this gap he caught a glimpse of shadowy men moving in the close beyond, and he realized that he had been seen. The white shirt he wore had betrayed his presence to them.
With a stifled scream, he began to run towards the wall, the page staggering after him. Behind them now came the clank and thud of a score of overtaking feet. Soon they were surrounded. The King turned this way and that, desperately seeking a way out of the murderous human ring that fenced them round.
“What d’ye seek? What d’ye seek?” he screeched, in a pitiful attempt to question with authority.
A tall man in a trailing cloak advanced and seized him.
“We seek thee, fool!” said the voice of Bothwell.
The kingliness that he had never known how to wear becomingly now fell from him utterly.
“Mercy—mercy!” he cried.
“Such mercy as you had on David Rizzio!” answered the Border lord.
Darnley