Part 33 (1/2)

And with these words he left the dais, followed by Sir Alexander Livingston. The girl stood in the place whence she had spoken her last words. Then, as the men-at-arms went shamefacedly to take the Earl by the arm, she suddenly threw herself across the platform, leaped lightly over the barrier, and fell into his arms.

”William, once I would have betrayed you,” she said, ”but now I love you. I will die with you--or by the great G.o.d I will live to avenge you.”

”Hush, sweetheart,” said William Douglas, touching her brow gently with his lips, and putting her into the arms of an officer of the court whom her uncle had sent to remove her. ”Fear not for me! Death is swift and easy. I expected nothing else. That you love me is enough! Dear love, fare thee well!”

But the girl heard him not. She had fainted in the arms that held her.

Yet the Marshal de Retz had still more for her to suffer. He stood beside her and dashed water upon her till she awoke, that she might see that which remained to be done.

It was a scene dreary beyond all power of words to tell it, when into the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two n.o.ble young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of broad morning suns.h.i.+ne still lingered upon the low platform on which stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting to do his appointed work.

The young Lords of Douglas came out looking brave and handsome as bridegrooms on a day of betrothing. William had once more his hand on David's shoulder, his other rested carelessly on his thigh as his custom was. The brothers were bareheaded, and to the eyes of those who looked on they seemed to be conversing together of light matters of love and ladies' favours.

High above upon a balcony, hung like an iron cage upon the castle wall, appeared the Chancellor and the tutor. The young King was with them, weeping and crying out, ”Do nothing to my dear cousins--I command you--I am the King!”

But the tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see the end. But it was a good end to see, and n.o.bler far than most lives that are lived to fourscore years.

The brothers embraced as they came to the block, kneeled down, and said a short prayer like Christians of a good house. So great was their enemies' haste that they were not allowed even a priest to shrive them, but they did what they could.

The executioner motioned first to David. An attendant brought him the heading cup of wine, which it was the custom to offer to those about to die upon the scaffold.

”Drink it not,” said Earl William, ”lest they say it was drugged.”

And David Douglas bowed his head upon the block, being only in the fifteenth year of his age.

”Farewell, brother,” he said, ”be not long after me. It is a darksome road to travel so young.”

”Fear not, Davie lad,” said William Douglas, tenderly, ”I will overtake you ere you be through the first gate.”

He turned a little aside that he might not see his brother die, and even as he did so he saw the Lady Sybilla lean upon the balcony paler than the dead.

Then when it came to his turn they offered the Earl William also the heading cup filled with the rich wine of Touraine, his own fair province that he was never to see.

He lifted the cup high in his right hand with a knightly and courtly gesture. Looking towards the balcony whereon stood the Lady Sybilla, he bowed to her.

”I drink to you, my lady and my love,” he cried, in a voice loud and clear.

Then, touching but the rim of the goblet with his lips, he poured out the red wine upon the ground.

And thus pa.s.sed the gallantest gentleman and truest lover in whom G.o.d ever put heart of grace to live courteously and die greatly, keeping his faith in his lady even against herself, and holding death itself sweet because that in death she loved him.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES

It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rode southward to raise to their chief's a.s.sistance the greatest and compactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding of one man.