at into an adjoining
chamber!" replied Wyat, affecting an incredulity he was far from
feeling.

"Your worship's adjuration was strangely interrupted," cried the old
man, crossing himself devoutly. "Saint Dunstan and Saint Christopher
shield us from evil spirits!"

"A truce to your idle terrors, Adam," said Wyat. "Take these packets,"
he added, giving him Henry's despatches, "and guard them as you would
your life. I am going on an expedition of some peril to-night, and
do not choose to keep them about me. Bid the grooms have my steed in
readiness an hour before midnight."

"I hope your worship is not about to ride into the forest at that hour?"
said Adam, trembling. "I was told by the stout archer, whom the king
dubbed Duke of Shoreditch, that he and the Duke of Richmond ventured
thither last night, and that they saw a legion of demons mounted on
coal-black horses, and amongst them Mark Fytton, the butcher, who was
hanged a few days ago from the Curfew Tower by the king's order, and
whose body so strangely disappeared. Do not go into the forest, dear Sir
Thomas!"

"No more of this!" cried Wyat fiercely. "Do as I bid you, and if I join
you not before noon to-morrow, proceed to Rochester, and there await my
coming."

"I never expect to see you again, sir!" groaned the old man, as he took
his leave.

The anxious concern evinced in his behalf by his old and trusty servant
was not without effect on Sir Thomas Wyat, and made him hesitate in
his design; but by-and-by another access of jealous rage came on, and
overwhelmed all his better resolutions. He remained within his chamber
to a late hour, and then issuing forth, proceeded to the terrace at
the north of the castle, where he was challenged by a sentinel, but was
suffered to pass on, on giving the watch-word.

The night was profoundly dark, and the whole of the glorious prospect
commanded by the terrace shrouded from view. But Wyat's object in coming
thither was to gaze, for the last time, at that part of the castle which
enclosed Anne Boleyn, and knowing well the situation of her apartments,
he fixed his eyes upon the windows; but although numerous lights
streamed from the adjoining corridor, all here was buried in obscurity.

Suddenly, however, the chamber was illumined, and he beheld Henry and
Anne Boleyn enter it, preceded by a band of attendants bearing tapers.
It needed not Wyat's jealousy-sharpened gaze to read, even at that
distance, the king's enamoured