第74章

"You mistake, sirs," said Wilding quietly. "The hand I have had in this affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid, of the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained a score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. Igreatly feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven preserves Your Majesty for better days."In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of apology to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on which his hand still rested. He advanced a step.

"Kneel, Mr. Wilding," he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But Wilding's stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of Monmouth's as much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.

"There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,"said Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking up a napkin to wipe his blade, "than the reward of an unworthy servant."Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.

"Mr. Newlington," said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and the fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons of doom. "His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your hands a sum of money - twenty thousand pounds - towards the expenses of the campaign. Have you the money at hand?" And his eye, glittering between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen face.

"It... it shall be forthcoming by morning," stammered Newlington.

"By morning?" cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of it.

"You knew that I march to-night," Monmouth reproached the merchant.

"And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you the honours of supping with you here," put in Wade, frowning darkly.

The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.

"The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd - or would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard."Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. "You have heard Mr.

Wilding's suggestion," said he. "You may thank the god of traitors it was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave behind for the sole purpose of collecting it." He turned from Newlington in plain disgust. "I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?""Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own life-guards are waiting to escort you.

"Then in God's name let us be going," said Monmouth, sheathing his sword and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.

Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's cry broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington, purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the raitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.

His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved.

But Mr. Newlington answered, not their call, for he was dead.