Part 3

“What is it, my lord?” she asked him coldly, as he flung himself down on the settle beside her.

He leered at her, put an arm about her waist, pulled her to him, and kissed her oafishly.

None stirred. All eyes were upon them, and all faces blank. After all, he was the King and she his wife. And then upon the silence, ominous as the very steps of doom, came a ponderous, clanking tread from the ante-room beyond. Again the curtains were thrust aside, and the Countess of Argyll uttered a gasp of sudden fear at the grim spectre she beheld there. It was a figure armed as for a tourney, in gleaming steel from head to foot, girt with a sword, the right hand resting upon the hilt of the heavy dagger in the girdle. The helmet's vizor was raised, revealing the ghastly face of Ruthven--so ghastly that it must have seemed the face of a dead man but for the blazing life in the eyes that scanned the company. Those questing eyes went round the table, settled upon Rizzio, and seemed horribly to smile.

Startled, disquieted by this apparition, the Queen half rose, Darnley's hindering arm still flung about her waist.

“What's this?” she cried, her voice sharp.

And then, as if she guessed intuitively what it might portend, she considered her husband with pale-faced contempt.

“Judas!” she called him, flung away from his detaining arm, and stood forth to confront that man in steel. “What seek ye here, my lord--and in this guise?” was her angry challenge.

Ruthven's burning eyes fell away before her glance. He clanked forward a step or two, flung out a mailed arm, and with a hand that shook pointed to the Seigneur Davie, who stood blankly watching him.

“I seek yon man,” he said gruffly. “Let him come forth.”

“He is here by my will,” she told him, her anger mounting. “And so are not you--for which you shall be made to answer.”

Then to Darnley, who sat hunched on the settle:

“What does this mean, sir?” she demanded.

“Why--how should I know? Why--why, nothing,” he faltered foolishly.

“Pray God that you are right,” said she, “for your own sake. And you,” she continued, addressing Ruthven again and waving a hand in imperious dismissal, “be you gone, and wait until I send for you, which I promise you shall be right soon.”

If she divined some of the evil of their purpose, if any fear assailed her, yet she betrayed nothing of it. She was finely tempered steel.

But Ruthven, sullen and menacing, stood his ground.

“Let yon man come forth,” he repeated. “He has been here ower lang.”

“Over long?” she echoed, betrayed by her quick resentment.

“Aye, ower lang for the good o' Scotland and your husband,” was the brutal answer.

Erskine, of her guards, leapt to his feet.

“Will you begone, sir?” he cried; and after him came Beaton and the Commendator, both echoing the captain's threatening question.

A smile overspread Ruthven's livid face. The heavy dagger flashed from his belt.

“My affair is not with any o' ye, but if ye thrust yersels too close upon my notice--”

The Queen stepped clear of the table to intervene, lest violence should be done here in her presence. Rizzio, who had risen, stood now beside her, watching all with a white, startled face. And then, before more could be said, the curtains were torn away and half a score of men, whose approach had passed unnoticed, poured into the room. First came Morton, the Chancellor, who was to be dispossessed of the great seal in Rizzio's favour. After him followed the brutal Lindsay of the Byres, Kerr of Faudonside, black-browed Brunston, red-headed Douglas, and a half-dozen others.

Confusion ensued; the three men of the Queen's household were instantly surrounded and overpowered. In the brief, sharp struggle the table was overturned, and all would have been in darkness but that as the table went over the Countess of Argyll had snatched up the candle-branch, and stood now holding it aloft to light that extraordinary scene. Rizzio, to whom the sight of Morton had been as the removal of his last illusion, flung himself upon his knees before the Queen. Frail and feeble of body, and never a man of his hands, he was hopelessly unequal to the occasion.

“Justice, madame!” he cried. “Faites justice! Sauvez ma vie!”

Fearlessly, she stepped between him and the advancing horde of murderers, making of her body a buckler for his protection. White of face, with heaving bosom and eyes like two glowing sapphires, she confronted them.

“Back, on your lives!” she bade them.