Rufus looked at him thoughtfully.

"Are you fresh enough to ride?" he asked.

"If need be," Randolph replied, astonished.

Rufus talked rapidly, writing a letter as he spoke.

"Then you may save your Puritan yet. We sent your hostage to Oxford for safe-keeping. News came of your death, and but now the King sent an order to have the fellow shot. But you can overtake the order, outstrip it. Here is a reprieve for the prisoner."

Rufus folded the paper, sealed it, and handed it to the bewildered Randolph.

"Pick what horse you please, and ride for the honor of our cause."

Randolph gasped.

"May I not see the King?"

Rufus refused him firmly.

"Impossible. His Majesty sleeps."

"My cousin Brilliana?" Randolph asked. "What of my joke?"

Rufus spoke very solemnly.

"The one thing now is to save a man's life. Ride hard, and G.o.d speed you." Randolph yielded cheerfully.

"Well, well, I should be sorry the rebel dog should die wrongfully.

You will justify me to the King for not attending him?"

Rufus nodded.

"I will justify you to his Majesty."

"And not a word to Brilliana," Randolph iterated. "I will have my joke on my return. Farewell."

He m.u.f.fled himself again and went out quickly. Rufus sat biting the end of his quill. Halfman stepped forward and made him a series of extravagant salutations, which parodied the most elaborate congees of a dancing-master. Rufus glared at him.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked, savagely. Halfman leered apishly at him.

"You are a splendid scoundrel," he vowed. "Do not frown. I have lived with such and I speak in praise."

Rufus struck his hands upon the table.

"I will have this Puritan devil," he swore, "if the King do not play the granny."

Halfman winked at him, diverted by his heat and hate.

"Say that more softly, for I think I hear him stirring."

The two listened in silence. The curtains of the inner room were parted and Charles entered the room. He still looked haggard, ill at ease.

"Was any one here?" he asked, as the two men rose respectfully. Rufus answered, glibly:

"No, your Majesty. We spoke in whispers to respect your rest. Did your Majesty sleep well?"

"Ill, very ill," Charles answered, drearily. "I had bad dreams and could not wake from them. Leave me, sirs."

Rufus solicited his eyes.

"And the prisoner?"

Charles looked at him vaguely.

"The prisoner?"

"The rebel hostage for murdered Randolph Harby," Rufus reminded him.

Charles looked vexed.

"Oh yes, I suppose he must die. Surely he must die. His plea is specious, but Randolph Harby is dead."

"Brave, murdered Randolph." Rufus's regret was pathetic. "Shall I give order for the firing party?" He made as if to write. Charles frowned.

"You are over-zealous, sir; I have not made up my mind."

Rufus read obstinacy in the royal face and knew that it were useless to argue further then.

"As your Majesty please," he submitted.

The King seated himself heavily at the table and fixed his eyes upon an open map. Behind his back Rufus shrugged his shoulders and left the room. Halfman followed, a very Jaques of meditations, touched by the pathos of the tired King, grimly diverted by the ruffianism of Rufus. A mad world!

XXVII

THE KING'S IMAGE

The melancholy King sat in the great room alone. His eyes were fixed on the map, but his mind was far away, over yonder in Holland where she was--she, the Queen. The thought of her beauty troubled him; her soft voice seemed to be whispering at his ear in her pretty broken English. Some lines in a play he knew came into his mind, lines uttered by a king who, like himself, had known the horror of civil war, lines which said that it were better to be a shepherd and tend sheep than to be an English king. He sighed and his handsome head drooped upon his breast, and the brown hair that was graying so fast hid his cheeks. His eyes were wet and he could not see the map; it was all a blur of meaningless criss-cross lines. This would not do; he must think, he must plan, he must decide; but his head remained bent and the map remained a criss-cross puzzle.

The image of himself, which faced him as he sat, that picture of a king, royal, joyous, unchallenged, seemed to move a little, as if the bright figure on the canvas sought to approach and rea.s.sure the dejected man who crouched over the map of a divided kingdom. It did move, the serene Van Dyck portrait; it moved a little, and a little, and a little more; moved sideway as a door moves, yawned a foot of s.p.a.ce between frame and wall, and through that foot of s.p.a.ce Brilliana slipped into the room.

"Your Majesty," she said, softly.

The King gave a little start as he lifted his head and looked at her.

She thought she had never seen so pitifully a weary face as the face of her King, and her heart ached for him, but it ached most for her lover.