For three weeks Colonel Holles waited in vain at The Harp in Wood Street for the promised message from His Grace of Buckingham, and his anxieties began to grow at last in a measure as he saw his resources dwindling. For he had practised no husbanding of his comparatively slender funds. He was well-lodged, ate and drank of the best, ruffled it in one or the other of two handsome suits which he had purchased from the second-hand clothiers in Birchin Lane,—considering this more prudent and economical than a return to the shops of Paternoster Row,—and he had even indulged with indifferent fortune a passion for gaming, which was one of his besetting sins.
Hence in the end he found himself fretted by the continued silence of the Duke who had led him into so confident a state of hope. And he had anxieties on another score. There was, he knew, a hue-and-cry set afoot by the vindictive fury of Mrs. Quinn, and it was solely due to the fact that his real whereabouts were unknown to her that he had escaped arrest. He was aware that search for him had been made at the Bird in Hand, whither he had announced to her his intention of removing himself. That the search had been abandoned he dared not assume. At any moment it might result in his discovery and seizure. If it had not hitherto been more vigorously prosecuted, it was, he supposed, because there were other momentous matters to engage the public attention. For these were excited, uneasy days in London.
On the third of the month the people had been startled in the City by the distant boom of guns, which had enduredthroughout the day to intimate that the Dutch and English fleets were engaged and rather alarmingly close at hand. The engagement, as you know, was somewhere off the coast in the neighbourhood of Harwich, and it ended in heavy loss to the Dutch, who drew off back to the Texel. There were, of course, the usual exaggerations on both sides, and both English and Dutch claimed a complete victory and lighted bonfires. Our affair, however, is not with what was happening in Holland. In London from the 8th June, when first the news came of the complete rout of the Dutch and the destruction of half their ships, until the 20th, which was appointed as a thanksgiving day for that great victory, there were high junketings over the business, junketings which reached their climax at Whitehall on the 16th to welcome back the victorious Duke of York, returning from sea—as Mr. Pepys tells us—all fat and lusty and ruddy from being in the sun.
And well it was—or perhaps not—that there should have been such excitements to keep the mind of the people diverted from the thing happening in their midst, to blind them to the spread of the plague, which, if slow, was nevertheless relentlessly steady, a foe likely to prove less easily engaged and beaten than the Dutch.
After the wild public rejoicings of the 20th, people seemed suddenly to awaken to their peril. It may be that the sense of danger and dismay had its source in Whitehall, which was emptying itself rapidly now. The Court removed itself to the more salubrious air of Salisbury, and throughout the day on the 21st and again on the 22d there was a constant westward stream of coaches and wagons by Charing Cross, laden with people departing from the infected town to seek safety in the country.
That flight struck dismay into the City, whose inhabitants felt themselves in the position of mariners abandonedaboard a ship that is doomed. Something approaching panic ensued as a consequence of the orders promulgated by the Lord Mayor and the measures taken to combat the dread disease. Sir John Lawrence had been constrained to issue stringent regulations, to appoint examiners and searchers, and to take measures for shutting up and isolating infected houses—measures so rigorous that they finally dispelled any remains of the fond illusion that there was immunity within the walls of the City itself.
A wholesale flight followed. Never were horses in such request in London, and never did their hire command such prices, and daily now at Ludgate, Aldgate, over London Bridge, and by every other exit from the City was there that same congestion of departing horsemen, pedestrians, coaches, and carts that had earlier been seen at Charing Cross. A sort of paralysis settled upon London life and the transaction of its business by the rapidly thinning population. In the suburbs it was reported that men were dying like flies at the approach of winter.
Preachers of doom multiplied, and they were no longer mocked or pelted with offal, but listened to in awe. And so reduced in ribaldry were the prentices of London that they even suffered a madman to run naked through the streets about Paul’s with a cresset of live coals upon his head, screaming that the Lord would purge with fire the City of its sins.
But Colonel Holles was much too obsessed by his own affairs to be deeply concerned with the general panic. When at last he heard of the exodus from Whitehall, he bestirred himself to action, from fear lest His Grace of Buckingham—in whom his last hope now rested—should depart with the others. Therefore he ventured to recall himself in a letter to the Duke. For two days he waited in vain for a reply, and then, as despondency was settling upon him,came an added blow to quicken this into utter and absolute despair.
He returned after dusk one evening from an expedition in the course of which he had sold at last that jewel which had now served whatever purpose he had fondly imagined that Fate intended by it, so that its conversion into money was the last use to which it could be put. He had made an atrociously bad bargain, for these were not times—the buyer assured him—in which folk were thinking of adornments. As he reëntered the inn, Banks, the landlord, approached him, and drew him on one side out of sight and earshot of the few who lingered in the common room.
“There’s been two men here seeking you, sir.”
Holles started in eagerness, his mind leaping instantly to the Duke of Buckingham. Observing this, the landlord, grave-faced, shook his head. He was a corpulent, swarthy man of a kindly disposition, and it may be that this wistful guest of his had commanded instinctively his sympathy. He leaned closer, lowering his voice, although there was hardly the need.
“They was messengers from Bow Street,” he said. “They didn’t say so. But I know them. They asked a mort o’ questions. How long you had been in my house, and whence you came and what you did. And they ordered me at parting to say nothing about this to you. But....” The landlord shrugged his great shoulders, and curled his lip in contempt of that injunction. His dark eyes were on the Colonel, and he observed the latter’s sudden gravity. Holles was not exercised by any speculations on the score of the business that had brought those minions of justice. His association with Tucker and Rathbone had been disclosed, possibly at the trial of the former, who had just been convicted and sentenced to be hanged and quartered. And he had no single doubt that, if he once came within the talonsof the law, his own conviction would follow, despite his innocence.
“I thought, sir,” the landlord was saying, “that I’d warn you. So that if so be you’ve done aught to place yourself outside the law, ye shouldn’t stay for them to take you. I don’t want to see you come to no harm.”
Holles collected himself. “Mister Banks,” he said, “ye’re a good friend, and I thank you. I have done nothing. Of that I can assure you. But appearances may be made to damn me. The unfortunate Mr. Tucker was an old friend of mine....”
The landlord’s sigh interrupted him. “Aye, sir, I thought it might be that, from something they let fall. That’s why I take the risk of telling you. In God’s name, sir, be off whiles ye may.”
It took the Colonel a little by surprise. Here for once Fortune was his friend in that the landlord of The Harp was a secret sympathizer with the republicans.
He took the man’s advice, paid his score—which absorbed most of the proceeds of the jewel—and, without so much as waiting to collect what gear he possessed, he set out at once from quarters grown suddenly so very dangerous.
He was not a moment too soon. Even as he stepped into the gloom of the street, two shadowy forms loomed abruptly before him to bar his way, a lantern was suddenly uncovered, and thrust into his face.
“Stand, sir, in the King’s name!” a gruff voice commanded him.
He could not see whether they had weapons in their hands or not, nor did he wait to ascertain. At a blow he sent the lantern flying, at another he felled the man who had advanced it. The arms of the second messenger wound themselves about his body, and the fellow steadied himself to throw him. But before that could happen Holles hadknocked the breath out of the man’s body by a jolt of his elbow, and, as the catchpoll’s arms slackened in their grip, he was flung off and violently hurled against the wall. As you conceive, Holles did not stay to verify what damage he had done. He was off like a hare, down the dark street, whilst behind him came shouts and the patter of running feet. The pursuit was not long maintained, and presently the Colonel was able with safety to resume a more leisurely and dignified progress. But fear went with him, driving him ever farther into the depths of the City, and it kept him company throughout the night. He lay in a tavern in the neighbourhood of Aldgate, and reflected grimly upon the choice position in which he found himself. Before dawn he had reached the conclusion that there was but one thing for a sane man in his position to do, and that was to quit this England where he found nothing but bitterness and disappointment. He cursed the ill-conceived patriotism that had brought him home, pronounced love of country a delusion, and fools all those who yielded to it. He would depart at once, and never trouble this evil land of his birth again. Now that the Dutch were back in the Texel and the seas open once more, there need be no difficulty; not even his lack of funds should prove an obstacle. He would ship as one of the hands aboard some vessel bound for France. With this intention he made his way to Wapping betimes next morning.
Vessels there were, and hands were needed, but no master would ship him until he had procured himself a certificate of health. The plague had rendered this precaution necessary, not only for those going abroad, but even for such as desired to go into the country, where no town or village now would receive any man who came from London unless he came provided with a certificate that pronounced him clean.
It was a vexatious complication. But it must be accepted.So the Colonel trudged wearily to the Guildhall, going by sparsely tenanted, darksome city streets, where he saw more than one door marked with a cross and guarded by a watchman who warned all wayfarers to keep their distance. And the wayfarers, of whom he met by no means many, showed themselves eager enough to keep to the middle of the street, giving as wide a berth as possible, not only to those infected dwellings, but also to all persons whom they might chance to meet. Not a few of those whom Holles found abroad were officials whose appointment the pestilence had rendered necessary—examiners, searchers, keepers, and chirurgeons—each and all of them distinguishable at a glance by a red wand borne well displayed as the law prescribed, and all of them shunned as if they were themselves plague-stricken.
It made the Colonel realize the extent of the spread of this infection which was now counting its victims by thousands. The extent of the panic he realized when he came at last to the Guildhall, and found it besieged by coaches, sedan-chairs, and a vast mob on foot. All here were come upon the same errand as himself; to procure the Lord Mayor’s certificate of health that should enable them to escape from this stricken city.
Most of the day he waited in that throng, enduring the stifling heat and the pangs of hunger and of thirst. For the only hawkers moving in the crowd were vendors of preventive medicines and amulets against the plague. Instead of the cry of “Sweet oranges,” which in normal times would have been heard in such a gathering, and which he would now have welcomed, here the only cries were: “Infallible Preservative Against Infection,” “The Royal Antidote,” “Sovereign Cordial Against the Corruption of the Air,” and the like.
He could ill afford to purchase the favour of the ushers and bribe them into according him some precedence. Hemust wait and take his turn with the humblest there, and, as he had arrived late, his turn did not seem likely to come that day at all.
Towards evening—unlike the more prudent, who determined to remain in their ranks all night, that they might be among the first served next day—he departed empty-handed and disgruntled. Yet within the hour he was to realize that perhaps he had been better served by Fate than he suspected.
In a sparsely tenanted eating-house in Cheapside, where he sought to stay the pangs of thirst and hunger—for he had neither eaten nor drunk since early morning—he overheard some scraps of conversation between two citizens at a neighbouring table. They were discussing an arrest that had been made that day, and in the course of this they let fall the words which gave pause to Colonel Holles.
“But how was he taken? How discovered?” one of them asked.
“Why, at the Guildhall, when he sought a certificate of health that should enable him to leave Town. I tell you it’s none so easy to leave London nowadays, as evil-doers are finding when they attempt it. Sooner or later they’ll get Danvers this way. They’re on the watch for him, aye, and for others too.”
Colonel Holles pushed away his platter, his appetite suddenly dead. He was in a trap, it seemed, and it had needed those words overheard by chance to make him realize it. To attempt flight was but to court discovery. True, it might be possible to obtain a certificate of health in a false name. But, on the other hand, it might not. There must be inquisition into a person’s immediate antecedents if only to verify that he was clean of infection, and this inquisition must speedily bring to light any prevarication or assumption of false identity.
And so he was on the horns of a dilemma. If he remained in London, sooner or later he would be run to earth by those who sought him, who would be seeking him more relentlessly than ever now, after his manhandling of those messengers of the law last night. If he attempted to go, he delivered himself up to justice by the very act.
He determined, after much gloomy cogitation, to seek the protection of Albemarle in this desperate pass, and with that intent went forth. He persisted in it until he reached Charing Cross, when a doubt assailed him. He remembered Albemarle’s selfish caution. What if Albemarle should refuse to take the risk of believing his innocence, considering the nature of the alleged offence? He hardly thought that Albemarle would push caution quite so far, especially with the son of his old friend—though it was a friend the Duke must disown in these days. But because he perceived the risk he hesitated, and finally determined that first he would make one last attempt to move the Duke of Buckingham.
Acting upon that impulse, he turned into the courtyard of Wallingford House.
His Grace of Buckingham had not accompanied the Court in its flight to Salisbury. His duties, indeed, recalled him to his lord-lieutenancy in York. But he was as deaf to the voice of duty as to that of caution. He was held fast in London, in the thraldom of his passion for Miss Farquharson, and enraged because that passion prospered not at all. It had prospered less than ever since his attempt to play the hero and rescuer of beauty in distress had ended in making him ridiculous in the lady’s eyes.
It was his obsession on the score of Miss Farquharson that was responsible for his neglect of the letter that Holles had written to him. That appeal had reached him at a moment when he was plunged into dismay by the news that Sir John Lawrence’s orders had gone forth that all theatres and other places of assembly should close upon the following Saturday, as a very necessary measure in the Lord Mayor’s campaign against the plague. The Court was no longer present to oppose the order, and it is doubtful if it would have dared still to oppose it in any case. Now the closing of the theatres meant the withdrawal of the players from Town, and with that the end of his grace’s opportunities. Either he must acknowledge defeat, or else act promptly.
One course, one simple and direct course, there was, which he would long ago have taken but for the pusillanimous attention he had paid to Mr. Etheredge’s warning. In a manner the closing of the theatre favoured this course, and removed some of the dangers attending it, dangers which in no case would long have weighed with His Grace ofBuckingham, accustomed as he was to flout all laws but those of his own desires.
He took his resolve at last and sent for the subtle Bates, who was the Chaffinch of Wallingford House. He gave him certain commands—whose full purport Master Bates did not completely apprehend—in the matter of a house. That was on the Monday of the week whose Saturday was to see the closing of the theatres. It was the very day on which Holles made his precipitate departure from The Harp.
On Tuesday morning the excellent and resourceful Bates was able to report to his master that he had found precisely such a domicile as his grace required—though why his grace should require it Bates could not even begin to surmise. It was a fairly spacious and excellently equipped dwelling in Knight Ryder Street, lately vacated by a tenant who had removed himself into the country out of dread of the pestilence. The owner was a certain merchant in Fenchurch Street, who would be glad enough to let the place on easy terms, considering how impossible it was just at present to find tenants for houses in the City or its liberties.
Bates had pursued his inquiries with characteristic discretion, as he now assured his grace, without allowing it to transpire on whose behalf he was acting.
His grace laughed outright at the assurance and all that it implied that Bates had taken for granted.
“Ye’re growing a very competent scoundrel in my service.”
Bates bowed, not without a tinge of mockery. “I am glad to merit your grace’s approval,” said he dryly. There was a strain of humorous insolence in the fellow, of which the Duke was disposed to be tolerant; perhaps because nothing else was possible with one so intimately acquainted with his conscience.
“Aye. Ye’re a trustworthy rogue. The house will doadmirably, though I should have preferred a less populous district.”
“If things continue as at present, your grace should have no cause for complaint on that score. Soon the City will be the most depopulated spot in England. Already more than half the houses in Knight Ryder Street are empty. I trust your grace is not thinking of residing there.”
“Not ... not exactly.” His grace was frowning, thoughtfully. “There’s no infection in the street, I hope?”
“Not yet. But there’s an abundant fear of it, as everywhere else in the City. This merchant in Fenchurch Street didn’t trouble to conceal the opinion that I was crazy to be seeking a house in London at such a time.”
“Pooh, pooh!” His grace dismissed the matter of fear contemptuously. “These cits frighten themselves into the plague. It’s opportune enough. It will serve to keep men’s minds off the concerns of their neighbours. I want no spying on me in Knight Ryder Street. To-morrow, Bates, you’ll seek this merchant and engage the house—and ye’re to acquire the tenancy of it in your own name. Ye understand? My name is not to be mentioned. To avoid questions you’ll pay him six months’ rent at once.”
Bates bowed. “Perfectly, your grace.”
His grace leaned back in his great chair, and considered his servant through half-closed, slyly smiling eyes.
“You’ll have guessed, of course, the purpose for which I am acquiring this house.”
“I should never presume to guess any purpose of your grace’s.”
“By which you mean that my purpose baffles you. That is an admission of dullness. You recall the little comedy we played a month ago for the benefit of Miss Farquharson?”
“I have occasion to. My bones are still sore from thecudgelling I got. It was a very realistic piece of acting, on the part of your grace’s cursed French grooms.”
“The lady didn’t think so. At least, it did not convince her. We must do better this time.”
“Yes, your grace.” There was the least dubiety in the rascal’s tone.
“We’ll introduce a more serious note into the comedy. We’ll carry the lady off. That is the purpose for which I require this house.”
“Carry her off?” said Bates, his face grown suddenly very serious.
“That is what I require of you, my good Bates.”
“Of me?” Bates gasped. His face lengthened, and his wolfish mouth fell open. “Of me, your grace?” He made it plain that the prospect scared him.
“To be sure. What’s to gape at?”
“But, your grace. This ... this is ... very serious.”
“Bah!” said his grace.
“It ... it’s a hanging matter.”
“Oh, damn your silliness. A hanging matter! When I’m behind you?”
“That’s what makes it so. They’ll never venture to hang your grace. But they’ll need a scapegoat, if there’s trouble, and they’ll hang your instruments to pacify the rabble’s clamour for justice.”
“Are ye quite mad?”
“I’m not only sane, your grace; I’m shrewd. And if I may presume to advise your grace....”
“That would, indeed, be a presumption, you impudent rogue!” The Duke’s voice rose sharply, a heavy frown rumpled his brow. “You forget yourself, I think.”
“I beg your grace’s pardon.” But he went on, none the less. “Your grace, perhaps, is not aware of the extent of the panic in the City over this pestilence. The cry everywhere isthat it is a visitation provoked by the sins of the Court. That’s what the canting Nonconformist preachers have put about. And if this thing that your grace contemplates....”
“My God!” thundered Buckingham. “But it seems you presume to advise me in spite of all.”
Bates fell silent; but there was obstinacy in every line of him as he stood there facing his master now. More calmly Buckingham continued:
“Listen, Bates. If we are ill served on the one hand by the pestilence, we are very well served on the other. To carry Miss Farquharson off while she is playing at the theatre would be to have a hue-and-cry set up at once that might lead to discovery and unpleasant consequences. But the Lord Mayor has ordered the closing of all theatres on Saturday, and it is on Saturday after the theatre, therefore, that this thing must be done, when Miss Farquharson will no longer be missed and her disappearance give rise to no excitement—particularly at a time when this very fear of the plague is giving people enough to think about.”
“And afterwards, your grace?”
“Afterwards?”
“When the lady makes complaint.”
Buckingham smiled in his knowledge of the world. “Do ladies ever make complaints of this kind—afterwards? Besides, who will believe her tale that she went to this house of mine against her will? She is an actress, remember; not a princess. And I still command some measure of authority in this country.”
But Bates solemnly shook his head. “I doubt if your grace commands enough to save my neck should there be trouble, and trouble there will be. Be sure of that, your grace. There’s too many malcontents abroad, spying the opportunity to make it.”
“But who’s to accuse you?” cried the Duke impatiently.
“The lady herself, if I carry her off for you. Besides, has not your grace said that the house is to be taken in my name? If more were wanted, that would supply it. I am your grace’s very dutiful servant, and God knows I’m not overscrupulous on the score of my service. But ... not this, your grace. I durstn’t.”
Amazement and scorn were blent on Buckingham’s countenance. He wanted to explode in anger and he wanted to laugh at the same time at the absurdity of finding an obstacle in Bates. His fingers drummed the table what time he reflected. Then he determined to cut the game short by playing trumps.
“How long have you been in my service, Bates?”
“Five years this month, your grace.”
“And you are tired of it, eh?”
“Your grace knows that I am not. I have served you faithfully in all things....”
“But you think the time has come when you may pick and choose the things in which you will serve me still. Bates, I think you have been in my service too long.”
“Your grace!”
“I may be mistaken. But I shall require proof before believing it. Fortunately for you, it lies within your power to afford me that proof. I advise you to do so.”
He looked at Bates coldly, and Bates looked back at him in dread. The little rascal fidgeted with his neckcloth, and his lean knuckly hand for a moment caressed his throat. The gesture almost suggested that his thoughts were on the rope which he might be putting about that scraggy neck of his.
“Your grace,” he cried on a note of appeal, “there is no service I will not perform to prove my devotion. Command me to do anything, your grace—anything. But not ... not this.”
“I am touched, Bates, by your protestations.” His gracewas coldly supercilious. “Unfortunately, this is the only service I desire of you at the moment.”
Bates was reduced to despair.
“I can’t, your grace! I can’t!” he cried. “It is a hanging matter, as your grace well knows.”
“For me, Bates, at law—at strict law—I believe it might be,” said the Duke indifferently.
“And since your grace is too high for hanging, it’s me that would have to be your deputy.”
“How you repeat yourself! A tiresome habit. And you but confirm me in my opinions. Yet there might be a hundred pounds or so for you as a douceur....”
“It isn’t money, your grace. I wouldn’t do it for a thousand.”
“Then there is no more to be said.” Inwardly Buckingham was very angry. Outwardly he remained icily cold. “You have leave to go, Bates, and I shall not further require your services. If you will apply to Mr. Grove he will pay you what moneys may be due to you.”
A wave of the white jewelled hand dismissed the crestfallen little scoundrel. A moment Bates wavered, hesitating, swayed by his reluctance to accept dismissal. But not even that reluctance could conquer his dread of the consequences, a dread based upon conviction that they could not fail to overtake him. Had it been anything less than a hanging matter he might have risked it. But this was too much. So, realizing that further pleadings or protestations would be wasted upon the cold arrogance of the Duke, he bowed in silence, and in silence removed himself.
If he withdrew in discomfiture, at least he left discomfiture behind him. The Duke’s trump card had failed to win him the game, and he knew not where to find another agent for the enterprise which now obsessed him.
Mr. Etheredge, coming later that day to visit him, foundhis grace still in a bedgown, pacing the handsome library, restless as a caged beast.
Mr. Etheredge, who well knew the attraction that held the Duke fast in Town, and who had, himself, just completed his preparations for departure, came to make the last of several recent attempts to recall his friend to his senses, and persuade him to leave London for healthier surroundings.
Buckingham laughed at him without mirth.
“You alarm yourself without occasion, George. This pestilence is born of uncleanliness and confines itself to the unclean. Look into the cases that are reported. The outbreaks are all in mean houses in mean streets. The plague practises a nice discrimination, and does not venture to intrude upon persons of quality.”
“Nevertheless, I take my precautions,” said Mr. Etheredge, producing a handkerchief from which a strong perfume of camphor and vinegar diffused itself through the room. “And I am one of those who believe that flight is the best physic. Besides, what is there to do here? The Court is gone; the Town is hot and reeking as an anteroom of hell. In Heaven’s name let us seek a breath of clean, cool, country air.”
“Pish! Ye’re bucolic. Like Dryden ye’ve a pastoral mind. Well, well, be off to your sheep. We shall not miss you here.”
Mr. Etheredge sat down and studied his friend, pursing his lips.
“And all this for a prude who has no notion of being kind! Let me perish, Bucks, but I don’t know you!”
The Duke fetched a sigh. “Sometimes I think I don’t know myself. Gad, George, I believe I am going mad!” He strode away to the window.
“Comfort yourself with the reflection that you won’t have far to go,” said the unsympathetic Mr. Etheredge.“How a man of your years and experience can take the risks and the trouble over a pursuit that....”
The Duke swung round to interrupt him sharply.
“Pursuit! That is the cursed word. A pursuit that maddens because it never overtakes.”
“Not a bad line, that—for you,” said Mr. Etheredge. “But in love, remember, ‘they fly that wound, and they pursue that die.’”
But Buckingham raved on without heeding the gibe, his voice suddenly thick with passion. “I have the hunter’s instinct, I suppose. The prey that eludes me is the prey that at all costs must be reduced into possession. Can’t you understand?”
“No, thank God! I happen to retain my sanity. Come into the country, man, and recover yours. It’s waiting for you there amid the buttercups.”
“Pshaw!” Buckingham turned from him again with an ill-humoured shrug.
“Is that your answer?”
“It is. Don’t let me detain you.”
Etheredge got up, and went to set a hand upon his arm.
“If you stay, and at such a time, you must have some definite purpose in your mind. What is it?”
“What was in my mind before you came to trouble it, George. To end the matter where I should have begun it.” And he adapted three lines of Suckling’s:
“If of herself she will not love,Myself shall make her,The devil take her!”
“If of herself she will not love,Myself shall make her,The devil take her!”
“If of herself she will not love,Myself shall make her,The devil take her!”
“If of herself she will not love,
Myself shall make her,
The devil take her!”
Etheredge shrugged in despair and disgust.
“Ye’re not only mad, Bucks,” said he. “Ye’re coarse. I warned you once of the dangers of this thing. I’ve no mind to repeat myself. But you’ll give me leave to marvel that you can take satisfaction in....”
“Marvel all you please,” the other interrupted him with a touch of anger. “Perhaps, indeed, I am a matter for marvel. I am a man racked, consumed, burnt up by my feelings for this woman who has scorned and spurned and made a mock of me. If I could believe in her virtue, I would go my ways, bending to her stubborn will. But virtue in an actress! It is as likely as snow in hell. She indulges a cruel and perverse zest to torture a man whom she sees perishing of love for her.” He paused a moment, to pursue with even greater fierceness, his face livid with the working of the emotion that possessed him—that curious and fearful merging of love and hatred that is so often born of baffled passion. “I could tear the jade limb from limb with these two hands, and take joy in it. I could so. Or with the same joy I could give my body to the rack for her sweet sake! To such an abject state have her wiles reduced me.”
He swung away, and went to fling himself petulantly into a chair, taking his blond head in his fine jewelled hands.
After that explosion Mr. Etheredge decided that there was nothing to be done with such a man but abandon him to his fate. He said so with engaging candour and took his leave.
His grace made no attempt to detain him, and for some time after his departure sat there alone in that sombre book-lined room, a fool enshrined in wisdom and learning. Gloomily he brooded the matter, more than ever exasperated by the defection of Bates, and the consideration that he was left thereby without a minister to assist him in the execution of his wishes.
He was disturbed at last by the appearance of a footman, who brought the announcement that a Colonel Holles was demanding insistently to see his grace.
Irritated, Buckingham was about to pronounce dismissal.
“Say that....” He checked. He remembered the letter received three days ago, and its urgent appeal. That awokean idea, and set his grace speculating. “Wait!” He moistened his lips and his eyes narrowed in thought. Slowly they lighted from their gloom. Abruptly he rose. “Bring him in,” he said.
Holles came, erect and soldierly of figure, still tolerably dressed, but very haggard now of countenance at the end of that weary day spent between Wapping and the Guildhall with the sense that he was being hunted.
“Your grace will forgive, I trust, my importunities,” he excused himself, faltering a little. “But the truth is that my need, which was very urgent when I wrote, has since grown desperate.”
Buckingham considered him thoughtfully from under his bent brows without directly replying. He dismissed the waiting footman, and offered his visitor a chair. Holles sat down wearily.
His grace remained standing, his thumbs hooked into the girdle of his bedgown.
“I received your letter,” he said in his slow, pleasant voice. “From my silence you may have supposed that you had passed from my mind. That is not so. But you realize, I think, that you are not an easy man to help.”
“Less than ever now,” said Holles grimly.
“What’s that?” There was a sudden unmistakable quickening of the Duke’s glance, almost as if he welcomed the news.
Holles told him without preamble.
“And so your grace perceives,” he ended, “that I am now not only in danger of starving, but of hanging.”
His grace had not moved throughout the rendering of that account. Now at last he stirred. He turned from his visitor, and sauntered slowly away in thought.
“But what an imprudence,” he said at last, “for a man in your position to have had relations, however slight, withthese wretched fifth-monarchy dogs! It is to put a halter about your neck.”
“Yet there was no wrong in those relations. Tucker was an old brother-in-arms. Your grace has been a soldier and knows what that means. It is true that he tempted me with proposals. I admit it, since that can no longer hurt him. But those proposals I incontinently refused.”
His grace smiled a little. “Do you imagine that the Justices will believe you when you come to tell them that?”
“Seeing that my name is Randal Holles, and that a vindictive government would be glad of any pretext to stretch the neck of my father’s son, I do not. That is why I describe my state as desperate. I am a man moving in the shadow of the gallows.”
“Sh! Sh!” the Duke reproved him gently. “You must not express yourself in such terms, Colonel. Your very tone savours of disloyalty. And you are unreasonable. If you were really loyal, there was a clear duty which you would not have neglected. When first this proposal was made to you, whatever your friendship for Tucker, you should have gone straight to the Justices and laid information of this plot.”
“Your grace advises something that in my own case you would not have performed. But even had I acted so, how should I have compelled belief? I knew no details of this plot. I was not in a position to prove anything. It would have been my bare word against Tucker’s, and my name alone would have discredited me. My action might have been regarded as an impudent attempt to earn the favour of the powers in being. It might even, in some tortuous legal manner, have been construed against me. Therefore I held my peace.”
“Your assurance is enough for me,” said his grace amiably. “And God knows I perceive your difficulty, and howyou have been brought into your present danger. Our first care must be to deliver you from this. You must do at last what should have been done long since. You must go before the Justices, and frankly state the case as you have stated it to me.”
“But your grace yourself has just said that they will not believe me.”
His grace paused in his pacing, and smiled a little slyly.
“They will not believe your unsupported word. But if some person of eminence and authority were to answer for your good faith, they would hardly dare to doubt; the matter would be at an end, and there would be no further question of any impeachment.”
Holles stared, suddenly hopeful, and yet not daring to yield entirely to his hope.
“Your grace does not mean that you ... that you would do this for me?”
His grace’s smile grew broader, kindlier. “But, of course, my friend. If I am to employ you, as I hope I shall, so much would be a necessary preliminary.”
“Your grace!” Holles bounded to his feet. “How to thank you?”
His grace waved him back again to his chair. “I will show you presently, my friend. There are certain conditions I must impose. There is a certain task I shall require of you.”
“Your grace should know that you have but to name it.”
“Ah!” The Duke paused, and again considered him intently. “You said in your letter that you were ready foranywork, foranyservice.”
“I said so. Yes. I say so again.”
“Ah!” Again that soft, relieved exclamation. Then the Duke paced away to the book-lined wall and back again before continuing. “My friend, your despair comes opportunely to my own. We are desperate both, though indifferent ways, and it lies within the power of each to serve the other.”
“If I could believe that!”
“You may. The rest depends upon yourself.” He paused a moment, then on a half-humorous note proceeded: “I do not know how much of squeamishness, of what men call honesty, your travels and misfortune may have left you.”
“None that your grace need consider,” said Holles, with some self-derision.
“That is ... very well. Yet, you may find the task distasteful.”
“I doubt it. God knows I’m not fastidious nowadays. But if I do, I will tell you so.”
“Just so.” The Duke nodded, and then—perhaps because of the hesitation that still beset him to make to Holles the proposal that he had in mind—his manner suddenly hardened. It was almost that of the great gentleman speaking to his lackey. “That is why I warn you. For should you wish to tell me so, you will please to tell me without any unnecessary roaring, without the airs of a Bobadil or a Pistol, or any other of your fire-eating, down-at-heel fraternity. You have but to say ‘No,’ and spare me the vapourings of outraged virtue.”
Holles stared at the man in silence for a moment, utterly dumbfounded by his tone. Then he laughed a little.
“It would surprise me to discover that I’ve any virtue left to outrage.”
“All the better,” snapped the Duke. He drew up a chair, and sat down, facing Holles. He leaned forward. “In your time, no doubt, you will have played many parts, Colonel Holles?”
“Aye—a mort of parts.”
“Have you ever played ... Sir Pandarus of Troy?”
The Duke keenly watched his visitor’s face for some signof understanding. But the Colonel’s classical education had been neglected.
“I’ve never heard of him. What manner of part may that be?”
His grace did not directly answer. He took another way to his ends.
“Have you ever heard of Sylvia Farquharson?”
Surprised anew, it was a moment before the Colonel answered him.
“Sylvia Farquharson?” he echoed, musing. “I’ve heard the name. Oh! I have it. That was the lady in the sedan-chair your grace rescued yonder in Paul’s Yard on the day we met. Aye, aye. I heard her named at the time. A baggage of a play actress from the Duke’s House, I think. But what has she to do with us?”
“Something I think—unless the stars are wrong. And the stars are never wrong. They stand immutable and true in a false and fickle world. It is written in them—as I have already told you—that we were to meet again, you and I, and be jointly concerned in a fateful matter with one other. That other, my friend, is this same Sylvia Farquharson.”
He rose, casting off all reserve at last, and his pleasant voice was thickened by the stress of his emotions.
“You behold in me a man exerting vast power for good and ill. There are in life few things, however great, that I desire without being able to command them. Sylvia Farquharson is one of these few things. With affectations of prudery this wanton keeps me on the rack. That is where I require your help.”
He paused. The Colonel stared at him round-eyed. A faint colour stirred in his haggard cheeks. At last he spoke, in a voice that was cold and level.
“Your grace has hardly said enough.”
“Dullard! What more is to be said? Don’t youunderstand that I mean to make an end of this situation?—to conquer the prudish airs with which this wanton jade repels me?”
“Faith! I think I understand that well enough.” Holles laughed a little. “What I don’t understand is my part in this—a doxy business of this kind. Will not your grace be plain?”
“Plain? Why, man, I want her carried off for me.”
They sat conning each other in silence now, the Colonel’s face utterly blank, so that the Duke looked in vain for some sign of how he might be taking this proposal. At last his lips curled in a rather scornful smile, and his voice drawled with a mildly humorous inflection.
“But in such a matter your grace’s own vast experience should surely serve you better than could I.”
In his eagerness, the Duke took him literally, never heeding the sarcasm.
“My experience will be there to guide you.”
“I see,” said Holles.
“I’ll tell you more precisely how I need you—where you can serve me.”
And Buckingham proceeded to inform him of the well-equipped house in Knight Ryder Street, which he now desired Holles to take in his own name. Having taken it, he was to make the necessary arrangements to carry the girl thither on the evening of Saturday next, after the last performance at the Duke’s House.
“Taking what men you need,” the Duke concluded, “it should be easy to waylay and capture her chair as it is being borne home. We will consider that more closely if the service is one that you are disposed to accept.”
The Colonel’s face was flushed. He felt his gorge rising. At last his anger mastered him, and he heaved himself up to confront the handsome profligate who dared in cold blood to make him this proposal.
“My God!” he growled. “Are you led by your vices like a blind man by his dog?”
The Duke stepped back before the sudden menace of that tone and mien. At once he wrapt himself in a mantle of arrogance.
“I warned you, sir, that I will suffer no heroics; that I will have no man play Bobadil to me. You asked service of me. I have shown you how I can employ you.”
“Service?” echoed Holles, his voice almost choked with anger. “Is this service for a gentleman?”
“Perhaps not. But a man standing in the shadow of the gallows should not be over-fastidious.”
The flush perished in the Colonel’s face; the haunting fear returned to his eyes. The Duke, seeing him thus suddenly stricken by that grim reminder, was moved to sudden laughter.
“It seems you have to realize, Colonel Holles, that there is no music without frets. You resent that I should ask a trifling service of you when in return I am offering to make your fortune. For that is what I am offering. You come as opportunely to my need as to your own. Serve me as I require, and I pledge you my word that I shall not neglect you.”
“But this ... this....” faltered Holles, protesting. “It is a task for bullies, for jackals.”
The Duke shrugged. “Damme! Why trouble to define it?” Then he changed his tone again. “The choice is yours. Fortune makes the offer: gold on the one hand; hemp on the other. I do not press either upon you.”
Holles was torn between fear and honour. In imagination he felt already the rope about his neck; he beheld that wasted life of his finding a fitting consummation on Tyburn at the hands of Derrick. Thus fear impelled him to accept. But the old early notions that had inspired his ambition and hadmade him strive to keep his honour clean rose up to hold him back. His tortured thoughts evoked an image of Nancy Sylvester, as he had last seen her set in the frame of her casement, and he conceived the shame and horror in that face could she behold him engaged upon so loathly an enterprise—he who had gone forth so proudly to conquer the world for her. Many a time in the past had that image delivered him from the evil to which he was tempted.
“I’ll go my ways, I think,” he said heavily, and half turned as if to depart.
“You know whither it leads?” came the Duke’s warning voice.
“I care not an apple-paring.”
“As you please.”
In silence Holles bowed, and made his way to the door with dragging feet, hope’s last bubble pricked.
And then the Duke’s voice arrested him again.
“Holles, you are a fool.”
“I have long known it. I was a fool when I saved your life, and you pay me as a fool should be paid.”
“You pay yourself. And of your own choice you do so in fool’s coin.”
Seeing him standing arrested there, still hesitating, the Duke approached him. His grace’s need, as you know, was very urgent. It was no overstatement that Holles’s coming had been opportune. Unless he could make of Holles the tool that he required so sorely, where should he find another? It was because of this he decided to use yet some persuasion to conquer a frame of mind that was obviously still balancing. He set a friendly hand upon the Colonel’s shoulder. And Holles, shrinking almost under that touch, could not guess that this Duke, who sought to make a tool of him, was himself the blind tool of Destiny hewing a way to her inscrutable ends.
And whilst the Duke now talked persuasively, tempting him with promises on the one hand and intimidating him with a picture of what must otherwise happen on the other, the Colonel’s own tormented mind was reconsidering.
Were his hands really so clean, his life so blameless, his honour so untarnished, that he must boggle at this vileness, and boggle at it to the extent of allowing them to stretch his neck and disembowel him sooner than perform it? And what was this vileness when all was said? A baggage of the theatre, a trull of an actress, had played upon the Duke that she might make the greater profit out of him in the end. The Duke, wearied of her tricks and wiles, desired to cut the game short. Thus the Duke represented the situation. And what cause had Holles to assume that it was other than a true representation? The girl was an actress and therefore, it followed, wanton. The puritanical contempt of the playhouse and its denizens—heritage of his Commonwealth days—left him no doubt upon that score. If she were a lady of quality, a woman of virtue, the thing would be different. Then, indeed, to be a party to such an act were a wickedness unthinkable, a thing sooner than which he would, indeed, suffer death. But where was the vileness here, since the object itself was vile? Against what, then, really, did this thing offend? Against himself; against his soldier’s dignity. The act required of him was one proper to a hired bully. It was ignoble. But was hanging less ignoble? Was he to let them put a rope about his neck and the brand of the gallows on his name out of tenderness for a baggage of the theatre whom he did not even know?
Buckingham was right. He was a fool. All his life he had been a fool, scrupulous in trifles, negligent in the greater things. And now upon the most trifling scruple of all he would fitly sacrifice his life.
Abruptly he swung round and squarely faced the Duke.
“Your grace,” he said hoarsely, “I am your man.”
His Grace behaved generously, and at the same time with a prudence which reveals the alert and calculating mind of this gifted man, who might have been great had he been less of a voluptuary.
He attended with Holles before the Justices early on the morrow, announcing himself able to confirm out of his own knowledge the truth of the account which the Colonel gave of his relations with the attainted Tucker. To that his grace added the assertion that he was ready—if more were needed—to stand surety for the loyalty of this suspected man whom he now pronounced his friend. More was not needed. The sycophantic court bent the knee before this great gentleman who enjoyed the close friendship of his King, and even professed regret that certain reckless and malicious statements should have deceived it into troubling the peace of Colonel Holles, and putting His Grace of Buckingham to the present inconvenience. The Colonel’s antecedents, which, without Buckingham’s protection, might have been the gravest source of trouble, were not so much as touched upon.
There was in all this nothing in the least unreasonable. Had the offence of which Colonel Holles was suspected been anything less than treason, it is not to be supposed that the Duke would have been able to carry matters with quite so high a hand. But it was utterly unthinkable that His Grace of Buckingham, whose loyalty stood so high, whose whole life bore witness to his deep attachment to the House of Stuart, and who was notoriously one of His Majesty’s closest and most intimate companions, should offer to stand suretyfor a man against whom the merest suspicion of disloyalty would be justified.
Thus at the outset was Holles delivered from his worst peril. Next he was informed that, since service of any distinction in England was almost out of the question for his father’s son, Buckingham would supply him with letters to several high-placed friends of his own in France, where a capable soldier well recommended need never lack employment. If Colonel Holles made the most of the opportunity thus afforded him, his future should be assured and his days of adversity at an end. This Holles clearly perceived for himself, and the reflection served to stifle any lingering qualms of conscience over the unworthy nature of the immediate service to which he was committed and to assure him that he would, indeed, have been a fool had he permitted any mawkish sentimentality to deprive him of this the greatest opportunity of all his life.
In this resolve to send Holles out of England the moment the service required of him should be accomplished, Buckingham again reveals his astuteness. Further, he reveals it in the fact that to assist the Colonel he placed at his disposal four of the French lackeys in his pay. It was his intention to repatriate them, packing them off to France together with Holles, as soon as the thing were done.
Thus, in the event of any trouble afterwards with the law, he would have removed the only possible witnesses. The unsupported word of Miss Farquharson—even in the extreme, and in his grace’s view unlikely, event of her not accepting the situation—would be the only thing against him; and in that case he did not think that he need gravely apprehend the accusations of an actress, which he would have no great difficulty in answering.
From attendance before the Justices, Colonel Holles repaired straight to Fenchurch Street to concludearrangements with the owner of the house in Knight Ryder Street. Of this he now acquired the tenancy in his own name for the term of one year. The merchant did not trouble to conceal the fact that he regarded Colonel Holles as crazy to desire to take up his residence in an infected city from which all who were able were making haste to remove themselves. Had the Colonel needed a reminder of it, he had it in the fact that he was constrained to go on foot, not only because hackney-coaches were now rare, but because the use of them was considered highly imprudent, since so many had been used by infected persons. Doors smeared with the red cross and guarded by watchmen were becoming commonplaces, and the comparatively few people met in the streets who still sought to maintain the normal tenor and business of their lives moved with the listlessness of despondency or else with the watchfulness of hunted creatures. The pungent smell of electuaries, and particularly of camphor, was wafted to the Colonel’s nostrils from the person of almost every man he met.
He may have thought again that—as he had already admirably expressed it—Buckingham was led by his passion like a blind man by his dog, to come thrusting himself at such a time into the City, and he may have taken satisfaction in the thought that he, himself, so soon as this business should be accomplished, was to shake the poisonous dust of London from his feet.
Matters concluded with the merchant, the Colonel went to take possession of the house, and he installed there two of the four French lackeys the Duke had lent him for myrmidons.
After that there was little to do but wait until Saturday, since, for reasons which the Duke had given him, the attempt should not be made before. That evening, however, and the next, the Colonel repaired to Lincoln’s Inn to watch from a safe distance Miss Farquharson’s departure from thetheatre, and so inform himself precisely of her habits in the matter. On both occasions she came forth at the same time—a few minutes after seven, and entered her waiting sedan-chair, in which she was borne away.
On Friday evening Holles went again, at six o’clock, and he had been waiting half an hour before the chair that was to convey her home made its appearance. It was the same chair as before and borne by the same men.
Holles lounged forward to engage them in talk. Of set purpose and despite the warm weather, he had donned a well-worn leather jerkin to cover and conceal his fairly presentable coat. He had removed the feather from his hat, and all minor ornaments, replacing his embroidered baldric by one of plain leather. A pair of old boots completed the studied shabbiness of his appearance, and gave him the air of a down-at-heel ruffler, ready to make a friend of any man.
He slouched towards the chairmen, pulling at a clay pipe, a man with time on his hands. And they, sitting on the shafts of the chair—one on each side, so as to balance each other—were nothing loath to have the tedium of their waiting beguiled by the thrasonical garrulousness his appearance led them to expect.
He did not disappoint them. He talked of the pestilence and of the war, and of the favouritism practised at Court, which bestowed commands upon all manner of incompetent fops and kept a hardened and stout old soldier like himself cooling his heels in London’s plague-ridden streets. In this last respect he made them find him ridiculous, so that they rallied and covertly mocked him and hugely enjoyed themselves at his expense, to all of which it appeared to them that his monstrous ruffler’s vanity made him blind. Finally he invited them to come and drink with him, and they were nothing reluctant to permit him thus to add physical to the mental entertainment he had already afforded them. Intheir spirit of raillery, and to involve this foolish fellow in the utmost expense, they would have conducted him to The Grange. But the foolish fellow had more reasons than one for preferring an obscure little alehouse at the corner of Portugal Row, and it was thither that he now conducted his newly made friends and guests.
When at last they parted, the chairmen compelled to it by the necessity to be back at their post by seven o’clock, it was with voluble protestations of friendship on the part of Holles. He must come and see them soon again, he vowed. They were fellows after his own heart, he assured them. Eagerly they returned the compliment, and, as they made their way back to the theatre, they laughed not a little over the empty vanity of that silly pigeon, and their own wit and cleverness in having fooled him to the top of his ridiculous bent.
It might have given their hilarity pause could they have seen the grimly cunning smile that curled the lips of that same silly pigeon as he trudged away from the scene of their blithe encounter.
On the following evening—which was that of Saturday—you behold him there again, at about the same hour, joyously hailed by Miss Farquharson’s chairmen in a manner impudently blending greeting with derision.
“Good-evening, Sir John,” cried one, and, “Good-evening, my lord,” the other.
The Colonel, whose swaggering carriage was suggestive of a mild intoxication, planted his feet wide, and regarded the twain owlishly.
“I am not Sir John, and I am not my lord,” he reproved them, whereupon they laughed. “Though, mark you,” he added, more ponderously, “mark you, I might be both if I had my dues. There’s many a Whitehall pimp is my lord with less claim to the dignity than I have. Aye, a deal less.”
“Any fool can see that to look at you,” said Jake.
“Aye—any fool,” said Nathaniel, sardonic and ambiguous.
The Colonel evidently chose the meaning that was flattering to himself.
“You’re good fellows,” he commended them. “Very good fellows.” And abruptly he added: “What should you say, now, to a cup of sack?”
Their eyes gleamed. Had it been ale they would have assented gladly enough. But sack! That was a nobleman’s drink that did not often come their lowly way. They looked at each other.
“Eh, Jake?” questioned one.
“A skew o’ bouze’ll never hurt, Nat,” said the other.
“That it won’t,” Nat agreed. “And there’s time to spare this evening. Her ladyship’ll be packing a while.”
They took the Colonel between them, and with arms linked the three set a course for the little alehouse at the corner of Portugal Row. The Colonel was more garrulous than ever, and very confidential. He had met a friend, he insisted upon informing them—an old brother-in-arms who had come upon fortunate days, from whom he had succeeded in borrowing a good round sum. Extending his confidence, he told them that probably it would be many days before he would be perfectly sober again. To this he added renewed assurances that he found them both very good fellows, lively companions these plaguy days, when the Town was as dull as a nunnery, and he swore that he would not be separated from them without a struggle.
Into the alehouse they rolled, to be skilfully piloted by the Colonel into a quiet corner well away from the windows and the light. He called noisily, tipsily, for the landlady, banging the table with the hilt of his sword. And when she made her appearance, he silenced her protests by his order.
“Three pints of Canary stiffly laced with brandy.”
As she departed, he pulled up a three-legged stool, and sat down facing the chairmen, who were licking their chops in anticipatory delight.
“’S norrevery day we meet a brother-in-arms whose norronly fortunate, but willing ... share ’sfortune. The wine, madam! And of your best.”
“Well said, old dog of war!” Nat approved him, whereupon the twain abandoned themselves to uproarious laughter.
The wine was brought, and the facetious pair swilled it greedily, whereafter they praised it, with rolling of eyes and resounding lip-smackings; they even subdued their raillery of the provider of this nectar. When he proposed a second pint, they actually grew solemn; and when after that he called for a third, they were almost prepared to treat him with respect.
There was a vacuousness in the eyes with which he pondered them, swaying never so slightly on his three-legged stool.
“Why ... you stare at me like tha’?” he challenged them.
They looked up from the replenished but as yet untasted measures. His manner became suddenly stern. “P’raps you think I haven’t ... money ... pay for all this swill?”
An awful dread assailed them both. He seemed to read it in their glances.
“Why, you rogues, d’ye dare ... doubt ... gen’l’man? D’ye think gen’l’man calls for wine, and can’t pay? Here’s to put your lousy minds at rest.”
Violently he pulled a hand from his pocket, and violently he flung it forward under their noses, opening it as he did so. Gold leapt from it, a half-dozen pieces that rolled and rang upon greasy table and greasier floor.
In a flash, instinctively, the pair dived after them, and grovelled there on hands and knees about the table’s legs, hunting the scattered coins. When at length they came upagain, each obsequiously placed two pieces before the Colonel.
“Your honour should be more careful handling gold,” said Jake.
“Ye might ha’ lost a piece or two,” added Nat.
“In some companies I might,” said the Colonel, looking very wise. “But I know hones’ fellows; I know how to choose my friends. Trust a cap’n o’ fortune for that.” He picked up the coins with clumsy, blundering fingers. “I thank you,” he said, and restored them to his pocket.
Jake winked at Nat, and Nat hid his face in his tankard lest the grin which he could not suppress should be perceived by the Colonel.
The pair were spending a very pleasant and profitable evening with this stray and thirsty rodomont.
They drank noisily. And noisily and repeatedly Jake smacked his lips thereafter, frowning a little as he savoured the draught.
“I don’t think it’s as good as the last,” he complained.
The Colonel picked up his own tankard with solicitude and took a pull at it.
“I have drunk better,” he boasted. “But ’sgood enough, and just the same as last. Just the same.”
“May be my fancy,” said Jake, at which his companion nodded.
Then the Colonel fell to talking volubly, boastfully.
The landlady, who began to mislike their looks, drew near. The Colonel beckoned her nearer still, and thrust a piece of gold into her hand.
“Let that pay the reckoning,” said he, very magnificent.
She gaped at such prodigality, dropped him a curtsy, and withdrew again at once, reflecting that appearances can be very deceptive.
The Colonel resumed his talk. Whether from the soporificdreariness of this or from the potency of the libations, Jake’s eyelids were growing so heavy that he appeared to have a difficulty in keeping them from closing, whilst Nat was hardly in better case. Presently, surrendering to the luxurious torpor that pervaded him, Jake folded his arms upon the table, and laid his sleepy head upon them.
At this, his fellow took alarm, and leaned across in an attempt to rouse him.
“Hi! Jake! We gotter carry ... ladyship home.”
“Dammer ladyship,” grunted Jake in the very act of falling asleep.
With dazed eyes Nat looked helplessly at the Colonel and shaped his lips to utterance by a visible effort.
“Too much ... drink,” he said thickly. “Not used ... wine.”
He made a feeble attempt to rise, failed, and then suddenly resigned himself. Like Jake, who was already snoring, he made on the table a pillow of his arms, and lowered his head to it.
In a moment both the chairmen were soundly asleep.
Colonel Holles softly pushed back his stool, and rose. A moment he stood considering whether he should recover the two or three gold pieces which he was perfectly aware the rogues had filched from him. In the end he concluded that this would be an unnecessary additional cruelty.
He lurched out of the corner, and the hostess hearing him move came forward. He took her by the arm with one hand, whilst with the other, to her amazement, he pressed a second gold piece into her palm. He closed one eye solemnly, and pointed to the sleeping twain.
“Very good fellows ... friends o’ mine,” he informed her. “Very drunk. Not used ... wine. Lerrem sleep in peace.”