oak swung from a
shoulder was one thing, and a mantle of frieze quite another. He dropped
the latter at his feet, crushed the light mask in his hand, and waited.

It was not for long. Down upon him swept the cortege--the heart of the
court of a virgin Queen. At once keenly and as in a dream he viewed it.
Not less withdrawn was it now than a fairy pageant clear cut against
rosy skies and watched by him from the stony bases of inaccessible
cliffs--and yet it was familiar, goodly, his old accustomed company.
This face--and that--and that! how he startled from it laughter or
indifference or vagrant thought. There were low exclamations, a woman's
slight scream, pause, confusion, and from the rear an authoritative
voice demanding reason for the delay. Past him, staring and murmuring,
swept the peacock-tinted vanguard; then, Burleigh on one hand, Leicester
on the other, encompassed and followed by the greatest names and the
fairest faces of England, herself erect, ablaze with jewels, conscious
of her power and at all times ready to wield it, came the daughter of
Henry the Eighth.

A noble presence moving in the full lustre of sovereignty, a princess
who, despite all womanish faults, was a wise king unto her people, a
maiden ruler to whom in that aftermath of chivalry men gave a personal
regard, rose-colored and fanciful; the woman not above coquetry, vanity,
and double-dealing, the monarch whose hand was heavy upon the council
board, whose will perverted law, whose prime wish was the welfare of her
people--she drew near to the man to whom she had shown fair promise of
settled favor, but to whose story, told by his Admiral and commented
upon by those about her, she had that day listened between bursts of her
great oaths and with an ominous flashing of jewels upon her hands.

Now her quick glance singled him out from the lesser folk with whom he
stood. She colored sharply, took two or three impetuous steps, then,
indignant, stayed with her lifted hand the progress of her train. Ferne
knelt. In the sudden silence Elizabeth's voice, shaken with anger, made
itself heard through half the length of the gallery.

"What make you here? Who has dared to do this--to place this man here?"

"Myself alone, madam," answered quickly the man at her feet. With a
motion of his hand he indicated the long cloak beside him. "I had but
made entrance into the gallery--I was taken unawares--"

"Hast a knife beneath your cloak?" burst forth the Que