"As to the falling, I believe him, and the rising I shall believe when I see it. Has our visit to-night then taught you nothing, David?"

"Nothing but what I knew before. What has it taught your majesty?"

"In the first place our charlatan does not want the king to know what he is doing, because when his subordinate refused me admittance and I said to him I would appeal to the king, he saw at once that this was serious, and wished to consult his master. His master was then willing to admit anyone so long as there was no appeal to the king. I therefore surmise he is most anxious to conceal his operations from me. What is your opinion, Davie?"

"It would seem that your majesty is in the right."

"Then again if he is a real scientist and has discovered an easy method of producing gold and is desirous to enrich Scotland, why should he object to a plain farmer like the Guidman of Ballengeich profiting by his production?"

"That is quite true, your majesty; but I suppose the line must be drawn somewhere, and I imagine he purposes to enrich only those of the highest rank, as being more powerful than the yeomen."

"Then we come back, Davie, to what I said before; why exclude the king who is of higher rank than any noble?"

"I have already confessed, your majesty, that I cannot fathom his motives."

"Well, you see at what we have arrived. This foreigner wishes to influence those who can influence the king. He wishes to have among his audience none but those belonging to the court. He has some project that he dare not place before the king. We will now return to the consideration of that project. In the first place, the man is not an Italian. Did a scholar like you, Davie, fail to notice that when he was in want of a word, it was a French word he used? He is therefore no Italian, but a Frenchman masquerading as an Italian. Therefore, the project, whatever it is, pertains to France, and it is his desire that this shall not be known. Now what does France most desire Scotland to do at this moment?"

"It thinks we should avenge Flodden; and many belonging to the court are in agreement with France on this point."

"Has your necromancer ever mentioned Flodden?"

"Once or twice he spoke of it with regret."

"I thought so," continued the king; "and now I hope you are beginning to see his design."

"What your majesty says is very ingenious; but if I may be permitted to raise an objection to the theory, I would ask your majesty why this was not done through the French ambassador? French gold has been used before now in the Scottish Court; and it seems to me that a great nation like France would not stoop to enlist the devices of a charlatan, if this man be a charlatan."

"Ah, now we enter the domain of State secrets, Davie, and there is where a king has an advantage over the commoner. Of course I know many things hidden from you which give colour to my surmise. Some while ago the French ambassador offered me a subsidy. Now I am not so avaricious as my grandfather, nor so lavish as my father, and I told the ambassador that I would depend on Scottish gold. I acquainted him with the success of my German miners in extracting gold from Leadhills in the Clydesdale, and I showed him my newly coined pieces. He was so condescendingly pleased and interested that he begged the privilege of having his own bars of metal coined in my mint, in order to disburse his expenses in the coin of the realm, and also to send some of our bonnet-pieces as specimens to France itself. This right of coinage I willingly bestowed upon him; firstly, because he asked it; secondly, I was glad to have some account of his expenditure. When I came in just now I examined these coins closely, and you imagined that I was suspicious of the purity of the metal. This was not so. I told my mint-master to coin all the bars the ambassador gave him, to keep a strict account of the issue, and to mark each piece with the letter 'F' on the margin. I find three of the coins which we received to-night bearing this private mark; therefore, they have passed through the hands of the French ambassador to the alchemist."

Sir David gave forth an exclamation of surprise. He left his seat, took the bonnet-pieces from his pocket and placed them under the lamp.

"Now," said the king, "you need sharp eyes to detect this mark, but there it is, and there, and there. Let us look a little closer into the object of France. The battle of Flodden was fought when I was little more than a year old; it destroyed the king, the flower of Scottish nobility, and ten thousand of her common soldiers. Who was responsible for this frightful calamity? My mother was strongly against the campaign, which was to bring the forces of her husband in contention with the forces of her brother, at that moment absent in France. The man who urged on the conflict was De la Motte, the French ambassador, standing ever at my father's side, whispering his treacherous, poisonous advice into an ear too willing to listen.

England was not a bitter enemy, for England did not follow up her victory and march into Scotland, where none were left to command a Scottish army, and no Scottish army was left to obey. Scotland, on this occasion, was merely the catspaw of France. Now I am the son of an Englishwoman. The English king is my uncle, and France fears that I will keep the peace with my neighbour; so through his ambassador, he sounds me, and learns that such indeed is my intention. France resolves to leave me alone and accomplish its object by corrupting, with gold coined in my own mint, the nobles of my court, and, by God!"

cried James in sudden anger, bringing his fist down on the table and making the coins jingle, "France is succeeding, through the blind stupidity of men who might have been expected to know their right hand from their left. The greatest heads of my realm are being cozened by a trickster; befooled in a way that any humble ploughman should be ashamed of. You see now why they wish to keep the silly proceedings from the king. I tell you, Davie, that Italian's head comes off, and thus in some small measure will I avenge Flodden."

Sir David Lyndsay sat meditatively silent for some moments while the king in angry impatience strode up and down the small limits of the room. When the heat of his majesty's temper had partially cooled, Sir David spoke with something of diplomatic shrewdness.

"I never before realised the depth and penetration of your majesty's mind. You have gone straight to the heart of this mystery, and have thrown light into its obscurest corner, as a dozen flaming torches would have illumined that dark laboratory in the Monastery. I have shared the stupidity of your nobles, which the clarity of your judgment now exposes so plainly; therefore, I feel that it would be presumption on my part to offer advice to your majesty in the further prosecution of this affair."

"No, Davie, no," said the king, stopping in his march and speaking with pleased cordiality, "no, I value your advice; you are an honest man, and it is not to be expected that the subtilty and craftiness of these foreigners should be as clear to you as the sunshine on a Highland hill. Speak out, Davie, and if you give me your counsel, I know it will be as wholesome as oatmeal porridge."

"Well, your majesty, you must meet subtilty with subtilty."

"I am not sure that the adage holds good, Davie," demurred the king.

"You cannot outrace a Highlandman in his own glen, although you may fight him fairly in the open. Once this Frenchman's head is off, you stop his boiling-pot."

"That is quite true, your majesty, but if the French ambassador should put in a claim for his worthless carcass, you will find yourself on the eve of a break with France, if you proceed to his execution."

"But I shall have made France throw off its mask."

"It is not France I am thinking about, your majesty. Your own nobles have gone clean daft over this Italian. He is their goose that lays the golden eggs, and you saw yourself to-night with what breathless expectation they watched his experimenting. I am sure, your majesty, that they will stand by him, and that you will find not only France but Scotland arrayed against you. A moment's reflection will show you the danger. These meetings have been going on for months past, yet no whisper of their progress has reached your majesty's ears."

"That is true; even you yourself, Davie, kept silent."

"I swore an oath of silence, and honestly, I did not think that this gold-making was an affair of State."

"Very well. I will act with caution. The breath of the money-getter tarnishes the polish of the sword; and in my dealings I shall try to recollect that I have to do with men growing rapidly rich, as well as with nobles who should be too proud to accept unearned gold from any man. Now, Davie, I'll need your help in this, and in aiding me you will assist yourself, thus will virtue be its own reward, as is preached to us. I will give you as many gold pieces as you need, and instead of paying three pieces at the entrance, give the man three hundred. Urge all the nobles to increase their wagers; for thus we shall soon learn the depths of this yellow treasury. If I attempt to wring the neck of the goose before the eggs are laid, my followers would be justified in saying that the English part of my nature had got the better of the Scotch. Meanwhile, I will know nothing of this man's doings, and I hope for your sake, Davie, that the gold mine will prove as prolific as my own in the Clydesdale."

The nobles followed the example set to them by the lavish Sir David.

They needed no urging from him to increase their stakes. The fever of the gambler was on each of them, and soon the alleged Italian began to be embarrassed in keeping up the pace he had set for himself. It required now an enormous sum to pay even double the amount taken at the door. The necromancer announced that the meetings would be held less often, but the nobles would not have it so. Then his experiments became less and less successful. One night the bonus amounted only to half the coins given to the treasurer, and then there were ominous grumblings. At the next meeting the bare amount paid in was given back, and the deep roar of resentment which greeted this proclamation made the foreigner tremble in his red robe. The ambassador was sending messenger after messenger to France, and looked anxiously for their return, while the necromancer did everything to gain time. At last there came an experiment which failed entirely; no gold was produced in the crucible. The alchemist begged for a postponement, but swords flashed forth and he was compelled on the spot to renew his incantation. If gold could be made on one occasion why not on another?

cried the barons with some show of reason. The conjurer had conjured up a demon he could not control; the demon of greed.

The only man about the court who seemed to know nothing of what was going forward was the king himself. The French ambassador narrowly watched his actions, but James was the same free-hearted, jovial, pleasure-seeking monarch he had always been. He hunted and caroused, and was the life of any party of pleasure which sallied forth from the castle. He disappeared now and then, as was his custom, and could not be found, although his nobles winked at one another, while the perturbed French ambassador looked anxiously for the treasure ship that never came.

At last the nobles, who, in spite of their threatenings, had too much shrewdness to kill the gold-maker, hoping his lapse of power was only temporary, forced the question to a head and made appeal to the astonished king himself. Here was a man, they said, who could make gold and wouldn't. They desired a mandate to go forth, compelling him to resume the lucrative occupation he had abandoned.

The king pressed his amazement at what he heard, and summoned the mountebank before him. The gold-maker abandoned his robe of scarlet and appeared before James dressed soberly. He confessed that he knew the secret of extracting gold from ordinary soil, but submitted that he was not a Scottish citizen and therefore could not properly be coerced by the Scottish laws so long as he infringed none of the statutes. The king held that this appeal was well founded, and disclaimed any desire to coerce a citizen of a friendly state. At this the charlatan brightened perceptibly, and proportionately the gloom on the brows of the nobles deepened.

"But if you can produce gold, as you say, why do you refuse to do so?"

demanded the king.

"I respectfully submit to your majesty," replied the mountebank, "that I have now perfected an invention of infinitely greater value than the gold-making process; an invention that will give Scotland a power possessed by no other nation, and which will enable it to conquer any kingdom, no matter how remote it may be from this land I so much honour. I wish, then, to devote the remaining energies of my life to the enlarging of this invention, rather than waste my time in what is, after all, the lowest pursuit to which a man may demean himself, namely, the mere gathering of money," and the speaker cast a glance of triumph at the disgruntled barons.

"I quite agree with you regarding your estimation of acquisitiveness,"

said the king cordially, giving no heed to the murmurs of his followers. "In what does this new invention consist?"

"It is simply a pair of wings, your majesty, made from the finest silk which I import from France. They may be fitted to any human being, and they give that human being the power which birds have long possessed."

"Well," said the king with a laugh, "I should be the last to teach a Scottish warrior to fly; still the ability to do so would have been, on several occasions, advantageous to us. Have you your wings at hand?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"Then you yourself shall test them in our presence."

"But I should like to spend, your majesty, some further time on preparation," demurred the man uneasily.

"I thought you said a moment ago that the invention was perfect."

"Nothing human is perfect, your majesty, and if I said so I spoke with the over-confidence of the inventor. I have, however, succeeded in sailing through the air, but cannot yet make way against a wind."

"Oh, you have succeeded so far as to interest us in a most attractive experiment. Bid your assistant bring them at once, and let us understand their principle. I rejoice to know that Scotland is to have the benefit of your great genius."

Farini showed little enthusiasm anent the king's confidence in him. He had, during the colloquy, cast many an anxious glance towards the French ambassador, apparently much to the annoyance of that high dignitary, for now the Frenchman, seeing his continued hesitation, said sharply,--

"You have heard his majesty's commands; get on your paraphernalia."

When the Italian was at last equipped, looking like a demon in a painting that hung in the chapel, the king led the way to the edge of Stirling cliff.