The terror that had gripped me on their first entrance, and driving
all the blood in my body to my heart had there set it bounding
madly--this terror I should vainly try to describe to persons who have
never been in such a situation or within a few feet of death, as I
then found myself. That, reckless and driven to the wall, the
conspirators would sacrifice me to their vengeance if they discovered
me I felt certain; and at any moment they might come up and discover
me. Yet behind me were the confining walls of the rooms whence I knew
of no exit, and before me, where alone evasion seemed to be possible,
the open door of the room below, and the flood of light that issued
from the doorway, forbade the attempt. I lay sweating and listening
therefore, while they snarled and cursed in the black mood of men
betrayed and hopeless; and yet because of the chance that after all
they might go out as they had come, I could so far keep my terror
within bounds.
Not so, when I heard Ferguson bid the man mount and fetch the keg. Had
he come without a light I might still have controlled myself and kept
quiet; and holding my breath though I were suffocated, and silencing
my heart though I died, might have lain and let him pass in the
darkness. Nay, had I crouched low, he need not have observed me with a
light; for I was a little beside the stairhead, and to enter the room
whence I had broken out he need not face me. But when I heard him
stumbling upwards, a sudden sense of the loneliness of the house in
that far corner of town came on me; and with it, an overwhelming
perception of my helplessness and of the life and death struggle to
which the men below were committed--so that death seemed to be in the
air; which together so far overcame me that I did the last thing I
should have expected. As the man came up the stairs, the light in his
hand, I rose up and stood, gasping at him.
He paused and held up the light. "The devil!" he said, staring. And
then, "Who the ---- are you? Here, Ferguson! Here's your man!"
The only answer from below was a roar for liquor.
"What are you doing here?" he went on, puzzled as much by my silence
as my presence.
"I am--going," I stammered; a desperate hope rising in my breast at
sight of the man's perplexity. He might let me pass.
For aught I know he would have done so; and it is possible that I
might have gone unseen by the open door below and gained the street.
But as he stood staring, a second man came into the passage, and
looked up and saw me. "Hallo!" he said. "Who is that?"
"Ferguson's man," Keyes answered. "But, boil me, if I know what is the
matter with him!"
The other called Ferguson and he came out, and saw me; looked, and
with a scream of rage, sprang up the stairs. In the fury of his
wrath--he threw himself on me so suddenly and with so much violence
and intention that I was a child in his hands; and but for the other's
exertions, who not understanding the matter tore him from me, I must
have been choked out of hand. As it was I was black in the face,
dizzy, and scarcely conscious when they freed me from him: nor in much
better case for the respite. For with all they could do he would not
release my shoulder, but dragging me down, cried breathlessly and
continuously to the others to listen--to listen! That he had the
traitor! that I was the informer! the spy, the blood-seller! And with
that, and as he partly forced and partly tugged me down the men
thickened round me, until dragged into the lighted room I found myself
hemmed in by a circle of lowering faces and gloomy eyes, a circle
that, look where I might, presented no breach or chance of escape, no
face that pitied or understood. He who seemed to be in highest
authority among them--afterwards I knew him for Charnock, the
unfrocked Fellow of Magdalen, who suffered with King and Keyes--did
indeed make Ferguson let me go; thrusting him back and calling on him
to tell his tale, and have done with his blasphemy. But though I
turned that way in momentary hope of aid, I read no encouragement in a
face as stern and relentless as it was fanatical. A lamp hooked high
on one wall, and so that it threw its light downwards, obscured half
the circle, and flung a bright glare on the other half; but in light
or shade, seen or unseen, and whether drink flushed it, or passion
blanched it, every face that met my shrinking gaze seemed to be
instinct with coming doom.
In such situations fear, which spurs some minds, paralyses others.
Vainly I tried to think, to frame a defence, to deny or avoid. The
glare of the lamp dazzled and confused me. To Ferguson's passionate
iterations, "The Lord has delivered him into our hands! I tell you,
the Lord has delivered him into our hands! There is your informer! I
swear it! I can prove it!" I could find no answer except a feeble, "I
am not! I am not!" which I continued to repeat--while one plucked me
this way that he might see me better, and another that way--until
Keyes struck me on the mouth, and thrusting me back bade me be silent.
"And you, too, Mr. Ferguson," Charnock said, raising his hand to still
the tumult, "have done with your blasphemy. And talk plainly. Say what
you know, and have no fear; if what you allege be proved, we will do
justice on him."
"Ay, by----!" cried Cassel, the swearer. "A life for a life."
"But, first, what do you know?" Charnock continued brusquely. "Speak
to the point. We must be gone by midnight if we are to save
ourselves."
Then, and then only, I think, Ferguson, hitherto blinded by rage,
became sensible of the fact that he stood himself in a dubious
position; and that to tell all, and particularly to reveal the visit
which the Secretary had paid to him at his lodgings, would, even with
the addition of the attempt he had made on the Duke's life, place his
conduct in a light far from favourable. Not only were the men before
him in no mood to draw fine distinctions, or take all for granted, but
it was on the credit of his name and as his tool that I had come to be
mixed up in the matter and gained my knowledge of it. It took no great
acuteness, therefore, to foresee that their suspicions, once roused,
they would punish first and prove afterwards, and be as ready to turn
on the master as the man.
These, when I came to review the scene afterwards, coolly and in
safety, were, I had no doubt, the reflections that gave Ferguson
pause at the last moment, and occasioned a kind of fit into which
he fell at that--his eyes glaring, his jaws moving dumbly, and
his hands springing out in uncouth gestures, like those of a man
half-paralysed--a fit which at the time was set down to pure rage and
a temper of mind always bordering on the insane. I suppose that in
that moment, and under cover of that display, his crafty brain, apt in
such crises, did its work, for when he found his voice he had his tale
pat; and where truth and a lie most ingeniously and sometimes
inexplicably mixed would scarcely serve his turn or win him credence,
he imposed on them, even on Charnock, by pure scorn and an air of
superior knowledge.
"What I know?" said he. "You shall have it. It is enough to blast him
ten times. To-day it happened that the Secretary came to me to my
lodgings."
For a moment the roar of surprise which followed this statement,
silenced him. But in a moment he recovered himself.
"Ay!" he said, looking round him, defiantly. "The Secretary. What of
it? Do you think that you know everything, or that everything is told
to you? To-day, I say, the Duke of Shrewsbury came to my lodgings."
"Why?" cried Charnock, between his teeth. "Why?"
"Why?" Ferguson answered. "Well, if you will have it, to send a
message through me to the other Duke, as he has done three times
before since his Grace has been in England."
"To the Duke of Berwick?"
"What other Duke is there?" the plotter asked, scornfully.
"But G----! If the Secretary knows that his Grace is in England----"
"Well?"
"What will he not know?"
"I cannot say what he will not know, Mr. Charnock," the plotter
answered, with a cunning smile that brought his wig to his eyebrows.
"But I can say what he did not know. He knew nothing of your little
business. For the rest, when he left me I missed my man here, and
coming to enquire, learned that he had been seen to join the Secretary
at the door of the house, speak to him, and go away with him. That was
enough for me. I changed my lodging, slipped away here, and had been
here an hour when you came. As soon as you said that some one had
peached to-day I knew who it was. Then Keyes cried that he was here,
and there he was."
"But how did he come to be here?" Charnock asked sternly, and with
suspicion.
"God knows!" said Ferguson, shrugging his shoulders; "I don't."
"You did not bring him?"
"Go to, for a fool! Perhaps he came to listen, perhaps he was sent. He
knew of this place. For the rest, I have told you all I know, and it
is enough or should be. Hang the dog up! There is a beam and a hook.
You hound, you shall swing for it!" he shrieked, passionately, as he
brought his crimson, blotched face close to mine, and threatened me
with his two swollen fingers. "You thought to outwit me, did you? You,
you dog! You crossed me and thought to sell me, did you? You dolt! you
zany! you are sold yourself! Sold and shall swing! Swing! Ay, and so
shall all my enemies perish!"
"An end to that," said Charnock, pushing him away roughly. "All the
same, if this is true, he shall swing."
"Well, it is true enough," cried a man thrusting himself forward,
while with shaking knees and chattering teeth, and tongue that refused
to do its work, I strove to form words, to speak, to say or do
something--something that might arrest the instant doom that
threatened me. "It is true enough," continued he coolly. "I was on the
watch at the Kensington end this afternoon and saw the Secretary
arrive and go in to the Dutchman. And he had this bully boy with him.
I know him again and can swear to him."