ve but two requests to make of
you, my friends--for though you both are of Gloucester's Household, yet
have you been friends to me this day, as Knight to Knight, for you owe
me no obligation. I ask that when yonder deed be done you recall to
the Lord Protector his brother Edward's dying wish that I might lie by
his side in Windsor Chapel. And lastly, I pray you bear to my sweet
Countess the assurance of my endless love and adoration. Give her this
ring and (pressing it to his lips) say that it bears my dying kiss.
Tell her"--and his voice broke, and for the first time in this man's
life tears started to his eyes and trickled down his ruddy
cheeks--"tell her that my last thought was of her . . . tell her that I
wish not Heaven save it bring her dear face to me." He mastered his
emotion. "Farewell, my friends," extending his hands, and they
silently grasped them, "may God, in His Providence, grant you a kinder
death than mine."

Then with placid face and voice he turned to Raynor Royk, who stood
leaning on his axe in evident distress of mind.

"I am at your service, my good man," he said. "Dispatch the business
quickly and do not, I pray you, bungle it at the stroke."

Removing his handsome cloak, he opened his doublet at the neck, and
with quiet dignity walked to the piece of heavy timber that had been
used in repaving the Chapel only the previous day, and which lay across
the green. Raynor Royk made a motion, and a tall soldier stepped
forth. Hastings knelt as the man stopped beside him and drew back his
doublet, baring his neck for the blow.

"Strike true, fellow," he said, and calmly placed his head upon the
timber's end.

XII

THE KING'S WORD

From this moment Gloucester moved with no uncertain nor halting steps
toward the object of his ambition. With the death of Hastings was
removed the only man in England who might have blocked his purpose
through either power or ability; and he and Buckingham were left free
to play out to its end the wonderful game that won a kingdom without a
single disturbance or the drawing of a sword. The moves followed one
another in bewildering rapidity, yet with such consummate skill, that
when in the great chamber of Baynard's Castle the final offer of the
Crown was made, and the Lord Protector with seeming diffidence accepted
it on Stafford's urging, it appeared but a natural consequence of
spontaneous events, brought about only by the force of circumstances
and