r liberty as well; best pass me by on the other side."

Aymer made a gesture of dissent. "The King trusts me," he said. "He
will not doubt my faith."

Stafford laughed sarcastically. "Pardieu! has the Devil turned saint
that Gloucester has come to trust a mortal man! At least, I shall soon
see if it has changed his fierce spirit, for here is Ratcliffe to lead
me to the Presence. . . Does our Cousin of England desire our company,
Sir Richard? If so, we are quite ready to embrace him."

But Ratcliffe was not one to do his present duty with levity on his
tongue, and he bowed with stiff formality.

"Will you come with me, my lord?" he said.

"_Au revoir_, De Lacy," smiled the Duke. "Now, to brave the Boar in
his lair and see him show his tusks."

And with an air of easy indifference, this man, for whom the world had
held such vast possibilities if he had but known how to attain them,
went to meet his doom. For that his life was forfeited Stafford well
knew; he had been taken in arms against the King and death would be his
portion.

Yet the judgment came with a stern swiftness that startled the entire
Court; and within the very hour that Shropshire's Sheriff entered
Salisbury, was the scaffold for the execution being put in place in the
courtyard of the inn.

From the window of the room in which he was confined, Buckingham idly
watched the work; and as he stood there, the King and the Duke of
Norfolk came forth with a few attendants and rode gayly away.

A scowl of darkest hatred distorted his face, and he shook his fist at
Richard--then laughed; and the laugh grew into a sneer, that after the
features were composed again still lingered about the mouth.

"It was well for the Plantagenet he did not grant the interview," he
muttered; "else------" From within his doublet, he took a long silver
comb, such as men used to dress their flowing hair and of which,
naturally, he had not been deprived, and touching a secret spring, drew
from the heavy rim a slender dagger.

"It is a pretty bit of Italian craft and methinks would have cut sure
and deep," he mused. He felt the blade and tested its temper by
bending it nigh double . . . "Why should I not cheat yonder scaffold
and scorn the tyrant to the end?" . . . then with calm determination
returned it to its sheath. "It would give them cause to dub me coward,
and to say I would have weakened at the final moment. A Stafford dare
not risk it."

He turned again