a moment more the leading boat had entered the sunlight.

There was no possibility of mistake as to whether this were the royal
barge or no. It was a great craft, seventy feet from prow to stem at
the very least, and magnificent with colour. As it burst out into the
sun, it blazed blindingly with gold; the prow shone with blue and
crimson; the stern, roofed in with a crimson canopy with flying tassels,
trailed brilliant coarse tapestries on either side; and the Royal
Standard streamed out behind.

Chris tried to count the oars, as they swept into the water with a
rhythmical throb and out again, flashing a fringe of drops and showing a
coat painted on each blade. There seemed to be eight or ten a side. A
couple of trumpeters stood in the bows, behind the gilded carved
figurehead, their trumpets held out symmetrically with the square
hangings flapping as they came.

He could see now the heads of the watermen who rowed, with the caps of
the royal livery moving together like clockwork at the swing of the
oars.

Behind followed the other boats, some half dozen in all; and as each
pair burst out into the level sunlight with a splendour of gold and
colour, and the roar from London Bridge swelled louder and louder, for a
moment the young monk forgot the bitter underlying tragedy of all that
he had seen and knew--forgot oozy Tower-hill and trampled Tyburn and the
loaded gallows--forgot even the grim heads that stared out with dead
tortured eyes from the sheaves of pikes rising high above him at this
moment against the rosy sky--forgot the monks of the Charterhouse and
their mourning hearts; the insulted queen, repudiated and declared a
concubine--forgot all that made life so hard to live and understand at
this time--as this splendid vision of the lust of the eyes broke out in
pulsating sound and colour before him.

But it was only for a moment.

There was a group of half-a-dozen persons under the canopy of the
seat-of-state of the leading boat; the splendid centre of the splendid
show, brilliant in crimson and gold and jewels.

On the further side sat two men. Chris did not know their faces, but as
his eyes rested on them a moment he noticed that one was burly and
clean-shaven, and wore some insignia across his shoulders. At the near
side were the backs of two ladies, silken clad and slashed with crimson,
their white jewelled necks visible under their coiled hair and tight
square cut caps. And in the centre sat a pair,