"Oh, we have met before!" was the quick and impudent answer. "I am not ashamed of my face. It has been known in its time. But fair play is a jewel, my lord. It is eight years since I saw your Grace last, and I have a fancy to learn if you are changed. Will you oblige me? If you would see my face, show me yours!"

With a gesture between contempt and impatience the Duke removed the hat, which at his entrance he had merely touched; and hastily lowering the cloak from his neck, confronted his opponent.

CHAPTER XXI

It cannot at this time of day be needful for me to describe in detail the aspect of those features which the action disclosed, since they are as well remembered by many still living as they are faithfully preserved for posterity-lacking some of the glow and passion which then animated them-on the canvas by Sir Peter Lely, which hangs in the Charterhouse. The Duke of Shrewsbury-to set concealment aside-was then in his thirty-sixth year, in the prime and bloom of manhood, of a fair complexion and regular features; over which the habitude of high rank and the possession of unrivalled parts threw a cast of reserve and stateliness, not unbecoming. As he was by nature so sensitive that on this side alone his enemies found him vulnerable, so his face in repose, if it had any blemish at all, had the fault of bordering on the womanish, the lines of his mouth following those of the choicest models of antiquity. But this blemish-if that which bore witness to the most affectionate disposition in the world could be called by that name-was little marked in public life, the awe which his eyes, alike firm and penetrating, inspired in the vulgar, rendering most people blind to it. To sum up, his face gave a just idea of his character; for though indolent, he was of such a temper that the greatest dared take no liberty with him; and though proud he gave the meanest his rights and a place.

Such, in fine, was the man who now confronted Ferguson, and with a stern light in his eye bade the schemer stand out. That the latter from the first had intended to declare himself, was as certain as that, now the time had come, he hesitated; awed by the mere power of worth, as I have heard that wicked men calling up spirits from the deep have stood affrighted before the very beings they have summoned. Yet his hesitation was for a moment only; after which, rallying the native audacity of a temperament which rejoiced in these intrigues and dénouements, he stepped jauntily forward, and assuming such a parody of dignity as likened his clumsy figure and sneaking face to nothing so much as an ape decked out in man's clothes, he allowed the light to fall on his features.

The Duke looked, and even where I stood behind the lath and plaster partition I heard him catch his breath. "You are Robert Ferguson!" he said.

"Well guessed!" the plotter answered, with a harsh discordant laugh. "Your Grace has not forgotten '88. Believe me, if the Prince of Orange had kept as good a memory, I should not have been in this garret, nor need I have troubled your lordship to visit me in it."

"It would have been better for you, sir, had you still refrained," the Duke answered with severity. "Mr. Ferguson, I tell you at once that I do not bear his Majesty's Commission in vain, and my first proceeding on leaving this house will be to sign a warrant for your apprehension, and direct the officers where it can be executed."

"And I, my lord," Ferguson answered with an impudent attempt at pleasantry, "have a very good mind to take you at your word, and let you go to do it. For when your officers arrived they would not find me, while your Grace would go hence to fall into as pretty a trap as was ever laid for a man."

"Doubtless, then, of your laying!" my lord cried, with a gesture of contempt.

"On the contrary. Until I saw you, I knew of the trap indeed, but not for whom it was intended. Since I have seen you, however-and how greatly you have improved since '88, when we last met" – Ferguson added, impertinently, – "my eyes are opened, and I feel a very sincere pity for your lordship."

"I am obliged to you for your warning," the Duke answered, drily, "and will endeavour to take care of myself. If that be all, therefore, that you have to say to me-and I assume that the letter in Lord Middleton's name was no more than a ruse-I will say good-day."

"But that is not all, nor a part!" Ferguson replied. "I have a bargain to propose, and information" – this sullenly and with lowered eyes-"to give."

"As usual!" my lord answered, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking with the most cutting scorn. "But permit me to say that you have made a mistake, Mr. Ferguson, in sending for me. You should know by this time, being versed in these affairs, that I leave such bargains to underlings."

"Nevertheless, to this bargain you must be a party," the other answered violently. "Nay, my lord, I can make you a party, I have only to tell you a thing I know; and whether you will or no, for your own safety you must do what I ask."

"For my own safety, Mr. Ferguson, I am not in the habit of doing anything I would not do for other reasons," the Duke answered coldly. "For the rest, if you have anything to tell me that concerns the King's service-"

"Which King's?" the plotter cried, with a sneer.

"I acknowledge one only-then, I say, I will hear it. But I will neither do nor promise anything in return."

"You talk finely," Ferguson cried, "yet you cannot deny that before this I have told things that were worth knowing."

"That were worth men's lives!" my lord answered, speaking in a low stern voice, and looking at him with a strange abhorrence. "Yes, Mr. Ferguson, I acknowledge that. That were worth men's lives. And it reminds me that you are growing old, and have blood on your hands; you only and God know how much. But some I know; the proof of it lies in my office. If you will take my advice, therefore, you will think rather of quitting the world and making your peace with heaven-if by any means it can be done-than of digging pits for better men than yourself. Man," he continued, looking fixedly at him, "do you never think of Ayloffe and Sidney? And Russell? And Monmouth? And Cornish? Of the men you have egged on to death, and the men you have-sold! God forgive you! God forgive you, for man never will!"

I should fail, and lamentably, were I to try to describe either the stern feeling with which my lord uttered this solemn address-the more solemn as it came from a young man to an old one-or the horrid passion born of rage, fear, and remorse commingled, with which the intriguer received it. When my lord had ceased to speak, Ferguson broke into the most fearful imprecations; calling down vengeance not only on others for wrongs done to him, but on his own head if he had ever done aught but what was right; and this rant he so sprinkled with texts of scripture and scraps of the old Covenanters' language that for profanity and blasphemy I never heard the like. The Duke, after watching the exhibition for a time with eyes of pity and reprobation, ended by setting on his hat and turning to the door. This sufficed-as nothing else would have-to bring the conspirator to his senses. With a hideous chuckle, which brought his tirade to a fitting conclusion, "Not so fast, my lord! Not so fast," he cried, slapping his pocket. "The key is here. I have something to say before you go."

"In God's name say it then!" the Duke cried, his face sick with disgust.

"I will!" Ferguson answered hoarsely, leaning on the table which stood between them and thrusting forward his chin, his face still suffused with rage. "And see you how I will confound you! The Duke of Berwick is in England. The Duke of Berwick is in London. And what is worse for you, my lord, he lies to-night at Dr. Lloyd's in Hogsden Gardens. So take that information to yourself, my Lord Secretary, and make what you can of it-not forgetting the King's interest! Ha! ha! I have you tight there, I think."

His triumph, extreme and offensive as it was, seemed to be justified by the consternation-I can call it by no other name-which darkened the Duke's countenance as he listened, and held him a moment speechless and motionless, glaring at the other. At last, "And you sent to me to tell me this?" he cried.

"I did! I did! There is no other living man would have thought of it or done it. And why? Because there is no man can play my cards but myself."

"You devil!" my lord cried; and was silent.

Seeing that I knew little more of this of which they spoke than that the Duke of Berwick was King James' natural son and favourite, I was at a loss to comprehend, either the Duke's chagrin or Ferguson's very evident triumph. The latter's next words, however, went far towards explaining his jubilation; and if they did not perfectly clear up my lord's position-fully to enter into which required a nobility of sentiment and a nicety of honour on a par with his own-they enabled me to guess where the shoe pinched.

"D'ye take me now, my lord?" the plotter cried, with a savage grimace. "That concerns the King's service I think; and yet-I dare you to make use of it. Ay, my Lord Secretary, I dare you to make use of it!" he repeated, his unwholesome face deep red with excitement. "For why? Because you know that there will be a day of reckoning presently-and sooner, mayhap, than some think. You know that. Sooner or later it will come-it will come, and then 'Touch not mine anointed!' Or rather, touch but a hair of his Jamie's head, and his Majesty'll no forgive! He'll no forgive! There will be mercy for my Lord Devonshire, and my Lord Admiral, ay, and for that incarnate liar and devil, John Churchill! Ay, even for him, for he has made all safe both sides and so have the others. But do you touch the King's blood, though it be bastard-do you send to-night to the Bishop's and take him, and go on to what follows-and you may kneel like Monmouth, and plead like my Lady Russell, and you'll to the axe and the sawdust, when the time comes! Ay, you will! you will! you will!"

Though his harsh voice rose almost to a shriek with the last words, and the room rang with them, the Duke stood mutely regarding him, and made no answer. After an interval, Ferguson himself went on, but in a lower tone. "That is the one course you may take, my lord," he said, "and the result of it! If you follow my advice, however, you will not adopt that course. Instead you will let FitzJames be. You will act as if you had not seen me to-day, nor heard that he was in London. You'll wipe this meeting from your memory and live as if it had not been. And so, at the Restoration, you will have nothing to fear on that head. But-but in the meantime," Ferguson continued with an ugly grin, "it may be the worse for your Grace if the truth, and your knowledge of the truth, come to the Prince's ears, whose Minister you are; and worse again if it comes to Bentinck's, who, I am told, is some trouble to your Grace already."

The Duke's face was a picture. "You villain!" he said again. "What do you want?"

"For my silence?"

"For your silence? No. What is your aim? What is your object? You betray one and the other. The son of your King to prison and death. Me, if you can, to ruin and shame. And why? Why, man? What do you?"

"What do I gain? What shall I gain, you mean," Ferguson answered, smiling cunningly. "Only your Grace's signature to a scrap of paper-give me that, and I am mum, and neither Berwick nor you will be a penny the worse."

"What, money?" cried my lord, surprised, I think.

"Oh, no, not money," said the plotter coolly. "And yet-it may be money's worth to me over there."

CHAPTER XXII

"It is this way, my lord," he continued after a pause. "Lord Middleton said some things over there in your Grace's name-that would be four years back; but you never acted on them, though it was whispered you paid dearly for them here. In the interval it has been the aim of a good many to get something more definite from your Grace; the rather as you stand almost alone, the main part of the Court, and more than you know, having made their peace. But the efforts of those persons failed with your Grace because they went about it in the wrong way. Now, I, Robert Ferguson," the plotter continued, patting himself on the chest, and bowing with grotesque conceit, "have gone about it in the right way; and I shall not fail. The position is this. You must either arrest the Duke of Berwick, or you must let him go. That is clear. If you do the former, you offend beyond pardon, and your head will fall at the Restoration, whoever goes clear. On the other hand, if you let the Duke escape and it comes to the Prince of Orange's ears that you knew of his presence, you will be ruined with your present party. The only course left to you, therefore, is to let him go, but to purchase my silence-that it may not reach the Prince's ears-by signing a few words on a paper, which shall be sealed here, and opened only by His Majesty in his closet. Now, my lord, what do you say to that?"

"That you are a fool as well as a knave!" was the Duke's unexpected reply. He had recovered his equanimity, and took a pinch of snuff as he spoke.

The plotter's eyes sparkled. "Why?" he cried with an oath. "And is that language for a gentleman?"

"A gentleman? Faugh!" cried my lord. "And why? Because you suppose your word to be of value. Whereas you should know that were you to go to Kensington and tell the King that you had informed me of this or that or the other, and were I to deny it, you would to Newgate for certain, and to the pillory perhaps-but I should be not a penny the worse. Your word forsooth! Why, man, you are crazed!"

"Ay, but if I had you followed here?" the other answered savagely. "If I can produce three witnesses to prove that you were with me to-day, and by stealth! And by stealth, my lord? What then?"

"Why, then this!" the Duke answered with composure. "And it is my answer. I shall go hence to the King and tell him all; and on your information, Mr. Ferguson, the Duke of Berwick will be arrested. Whatever my fate or his after that, I shall have done my duty and kept my oath as a privy-councillor, and the rest I leave to God! But for you," he continued, slowly and with solemnity, "who to gain a hold on me have betrayed the son of your King, your fate be on your own head!"

The plotter, who, I think, had expected any answer but this, and, it may be, had never considered his own position, should the Duke stand firm, roared out a furious "You lie!" And then again in a frenzy, as the consequences rose more clearly before him, "You lie!" he cried, striking his hand on the table. "You will not do it! You will not dare to do it!"

"Mr. Ferguson," the Duke answered haughtily, "I do not suffer persons of your condition to tell me what I dare, or do not dare; or persons of any condition to give me the lie. Be good enough to open the door!"

"Sign the paper!" the conspirator hissed. His face, at no time sightly, was now distorted by fear and the rage of defeat; while the chair on the back of which he leaned his left hand, jerked this way and that as if the palsy had him. "Sign the paper, will you? Or your blood be on your own head!"

The Duke's only answer was to point to the door with his cane. "Open it!" he said, his breath coming a little quickly, but his manner otherwise unmoved. "Do you hear me?"

But either Ferguson's rage had so much the mastery of him that he could no longer control himself, or he was desperate, seeing into what an abyss the other's firmness was pushing him; or from the first he had determined on this course in the last resort. At any rate at that word, and instead of complying, he fell back a step and with a dark face drew a pistol from the pocket of his long coat. "Sign!" he cried, his voice whistling in his throat, as he levelled the arm at my lord's head. "Sign, you Roman spawn, or I'll spill your brains! Sign, or you don't go out of this room alive! Has the Lord's foot been put on the neck of his enemies that such as you should divide the spoil!"

There was nothing to sign, for he had not produced the paper. But in the delirium of fear and excitement into which he had fallen, he was unconscious of this, and of all except that he was in danger of falling into the pit he had digged for another. His hand shook so violently that every moment I expected the pistol to explode, with his will or without it; his fears no less than his despair putting my lord in danger. What he, who stood thus exposed to naked death thought in his heart while his existence hung on a shaking finger, I can not say, nor if he prayed; for no man talked less of religion, to be, as I trust he was, a believer; while the pride which supported him in that crisis was as powerful to close his lips after the event. "Put that down!" was all he said; and met the other's eyes without blenching, though I think that he was a trifle paler than he had been.

"Sign!" answered the madman with an oath.

"Put it down!" repeated the Duke; and doubtless his courage by imposing a restraint on the other's headiness postponed, though it could not avert, the catastrophe.

For, every second they stood thus fronting one another, Ferguson grinning and gibbering to him to sign, I looked to see the pistol explode, and my lord fall lifeless. My knees shook under me; horrified at this murder to be committed under my eyes, scarce conscious what I did or would do, I fumbled for the handle of the door-which luckily was beside me; and found it precisely as the Duke, with a twirl of his cane, as swift as it was unexpected, knocked the pistol aside and sprang bodily on the villain, striving to bear him down. He had no time to draw his sword.

He was the younger man by twenty years and the more active, if not the more powerful; so that for an instant it seemed to me that the danger was over. But I counted without Ferguson; who leaping back before the other could grapple with him, with a nimbleness beyond his years put the table between them, and levelling the pistol afresh with a snarl of rage, pulled the trigger. The flint snapped harmlessly!

More than that I could not bear, and, by heaven's mercy, the movement had brought the wretch close to the door at which I stood, and which I had that moment opened. As he aimed the pistol a second time, and with a fresh execration, I flung my arms round him from behind, and with my right hand jerked up the pistol; which exploded, bringing down a rush of plaster, and filling the room with smoke and brimstone.

An interposition so sudden and timely must have been no less a surprise to the Duke than to Ferguson. Nevertheless, the former, without the loss of a moment, flung himself on his antagonist; and seizing the pistol, while I clung to him behind, in a twinkling he had him disarmed. Yet, even when this was done, so furious were the man's struggles, and so inhuman the strength he displayed (even to biting and foaming in a fury that could only be called maniacal) that it was as much as we could both do to conquer him; though we were two to one, and younger. Nor would he be quiet or resign himself to defeat until we had him down on his back, with my lord's sword-point at his throat.

Then it was that while we stood over him, panting and trembling with the exertions we had made, my lord turned his eyes on me. "My friend," he said, "who are you?"

I could not speak for emotion; and though he was calmer, I could see that he was deeply stirred, both by the risk he had run, and the narrowness of his escape. "My lord," I cried, at last, "take me away."

"From here?" he said.

"Yes," I said, "for God's sake, for God's sake, take me away," and I burst into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing; so overcome was I by what had happened, and what had almost happened.

He looked at me, his lip twitching a little, and his breast heaving. "Be easy, man," he said. "Were you set to watch me?"

"Yes," I said.

"And you heard all?"

"All."

"Who are you?" he said again.

"Two months ago I was an honest man," I answered bitterly, "and then I got into his clutches. And he has ridden me. Ah, how he has ridden me!"

"I see," he said, nodding gravely. "Well, his riding days are over. Hark you, Mr. Ferguson," he continued, turning to the prostrate man, who, grovelling before us-I had taken the precaution of tying his hands with my garters-acknowledged his attention by a hollow groan, "I am no thief-taker, and I shall not soil my hands with you. But within an hour the messengers will be here; and if they find you, look to yourself; for I think that in that case you will indubitably hang. In the meantime I will take your pistol." Then to me, "Come, my man," he said, "if you wish to go with me."

"I do," I cried.

"Well, I owe you more than that," he answered kindly. "And I need you, besides. Mr. Ferguson, I bid you farewell. You have proved yourself a more foolish man than I thought you. A worse you could not. The best I can wish you is that you may never see my face again."