All, however, were speedily too busy with watching the Show go by to
take much heed of any word passage between the two women. Now it was
Mistress Deborah Clay pointing out the Remembrancer to her gossip; now
the flaunting banners of the Companies, now the velvet robes of the
Lords of the Council were looked upon; now a Great Cry arose that his
Highness was coming.

He came in his coach drawn by the eight Holstein mares, one of his lords
by his side, and his two chaplains, with a gentleman of the bed-chamber
sitting over against. He wore a rich suit of brown velvet purfled with
white satin, a bright gorget of silver,--men said that he wore mail
beneath his clothes,--startups and gauntlets of yellow Spanish, a great
baldric of cloth-of-gold, and in his hat a buckle of diamonds and a red
feather. Yet, bravely as he was attired, those who knew him declared
that they had never seen Oliver look so careworn and so miserable as he
did that day.

By a kind of Fate, he turned his glance upwards as he passed the house
of the Turkey merchant, and those Cruel Eyes met the fierce gaze of
Arabella Greenville.

"Blood for Blood!" she cried out in a loud clear voice; and she drew a
Pistol from the folds of her mantle, and fired downwards, and with good
aim, at the Protector's head.

My Lady Lisle saw the deed done. "Jezebel!" she shrieked, striking the
weapon from Arabella's hand.

Oliver escaped unharmed, but by an almost miracle. The bullet had struck
him as it was aimed, directly in the centre of his forehead, he wearing
his hat much slouched over his brow; but it had struck--not his skull,
but the diamond buckle, and glancing off from that hard mass, sped out
of the coach-window again, on what errand none could tell, for it was
heard of no more. I have often wondered what became of all the bullets I
have let fly.

The stoppage of the coach; the Protector half stunned; the chaplain
paralysed with fear; the Trainbands in a frenzy--half of terror, half of
strong drink--firing off their pieces hap-hazard at the windows, and
shouting out that this was a plot of the Papists or the Malignants; the
crowd surging, the Body-Guard galloping to and fro; the poor
standard-bearers tripping themselves up with their own poles,--all this
made a mad turmoil in the street without Ludgate. But the Protector had
speedily found all his senses, and had whispered a word or two to a
certain Sergeant in whom he placed great trust, and pointed his fi