CHAPTER XXVI.

"FIRE! FIRE!"

Silent and dark as any city of the dead lies Newmarket under the starless sky. Not so much as a glimmer to be seen even about the palace, excepting from the mullioned lattices of the king's own bedchamber.

Two hours since, Charles bade good-night to his courtiers, who, despite their best efforts to be entertaining, were yawning frightfully after their long day's pleasure; and then, retiring to his dressing-room, he dismissed also his drowsy valets, who, evidently for once in a way, seemed not indisposed to allow him to draw on his own night-cap instead of doing it for him, "for all the world," as he used to complain, as if he were "some poor Tyburn gallows-wretch."

Whether he was too tired for sleep, which is sometimes the case with people, or not tired enough, it was certain the king himself was in no mood for sleep; and wrapping his silken dressing-gown about him, and trimming the wick of the massive silver lamp upon the table with his own august fingers, he drew it towards him, and stretching himself upon a couch, took up a book which lay tumbled face downwards among its cushions.

[Sidenote: Charles sits up to read.]

"A fair outside truly," he murmured half aloud to himself as he carelessly scanned its richly emblazoned velvet and gilt binding, and then proceeded as carelessly to turn its embossed pages; "and with such a mighty pretty dedication to my sacred majesty, that my poor privy-purse will suffer cruelly, I fear. Tho' I'll dare swear that 'tis all as full of emptiness, or at best of fulsome fawning flatteries, as my fine lords and ladies, who hang upon my skirts, and care no more for me than this little Médor here," and he gently caressed the satin soft ears of the little dog who had jumped to its favourite spot between himself and the downy cushions, "who loves me--for the cake and comfits I carry in my pocket. Nay, but I do thee an ill compliment after all, Médor; for though to be sure thou mightst not be at the pains to stretch out one of thy fringy paws here to help me in my need, at least thou'dst not turn against me, as some I wot of would, who have fed upon my bounty. But what have we here?" continued the king, turning on again at the pages of his book. "Nay, now, fie, fie, Master Poetaster! but is not your choice of mottoes here uncourtly, to say the least?

"'For kings and mightiest potentates must die. For that's the end of human misery.'

"I' faith! and I doubt 'twould trouble you no more than the rest of the herd, were I to die to-night, so long as your dedication money were safe to you. All--all alike, every man jack, and woman jill of you. 'The king is dead,' you'd cry, 'alack! alack!' though I doubt your breath might not reach to so much as that--'The king is dead--'"

[Sidenote: A startling visitor.]

"God save the king!"

"Who goes there?" cried the king, starting to his feet and flinging down the book. What voice was this, snatching, as it were from his lips the very words that were upon them, and in tones so deep and significant, from the darkest recesses of the dimly lighted chamber? "Who goes there?" he reiterated, peering hard into the obscurity, till at last his keen gaze caught the outlines of a figure enveloped in a black riding cloak.

"A friend," answered the voice in hurried tones.

Charles laughed bitterly. "Our foes in disguise call themselves that," he said. "Come forward--friend, into the lamplight here."

The intruder needed not to do so much in order to reveal his identity; for the words had not left the king's lips before a glare of light lit up the whole apartment, and revealed the face of Lawrence Lee. An exclamation of anger broke from Charles; and he darted a look of mingled suspicion and defiance on Lee.

"Ha! I thought as much, Master Talebearer," he cried; "and this is your vaunted loyalty--this is--"

"Fire! fire! your majesty," and Lee rushed forward with outspread arms. "Come quick! for God's sake, come! afterwards hang me--kill me--do as you will. But now--now--the palace is on fire, I say! and there's not an instant to lose."

[Sidenote: Madness indeed.]

"Fire?" cried the king, casting a rapid glance upward at the dazzling glare lighting up every object in the room, and hurrying towards the curtained entrance, only to stagger backward into Lee's arms, overcome with the smoke and flame bursting from the heavy drapery as he lifted it.

"No, no! great heavens! not that way!" shouted Lee. "Already the corridors have caught, and communication will be cut off. Come for your life;" and he dragged the half-breathless king across the room. "Here, by the private staircase!"

"What private staircase?" demanded Charles, reeling forward after Lee, with his hand to his month. "I tell thee, man," he went on, in tones of anger as well as of fear, "there is no private stair--"

"Come! come!" shouted his deliverer with a laugh of triumph which rang through the burning room, and he seized the king round the waist with both arms; "we are safe enough this way--as yet."

"The dog! the dog!" cried the king, struggling in Lee's embrace, and pointing towards poor Médor, whose piteous yelpings resounded from the couch.

[Illustration: LAWRENCE LEE SAVES THE KING]

"Ay, come, then," said Lawrence, turning, and catching up the little animal with one hand, he thrust it into his pocket. Then tightening his clutch upon the king, he dragged him to a square hole in the side of the wainscoted wall as yet untouched by the flames, and almost flung him down on his knees as with a vigorous push he thrust him through the aperture.

"What is the meaning of this, sirrah?" angrily demanded the king, as, after a maddening interval passed in stumbling and sliding through pitch darkness encircled by Lee's arms, he went round and round, down and down, as if in some hideous nightmare dream, till at last his feet were safely deposited on level ground, and his shoulders against a rough stone wall, which struck ice cold through his silken dressing-gown. "Say! what does it all mean?"

[Sidenote: Fire on the brain.]

"Fire! fire! your majesty," was all Lawrence could find breath to articulate, as, reeling from the weight of his burden, he advanced towards a lamp whose rays sufficed dimly to reveal a low stone vaulted roof, supported by thick pillars, whose outlines loomed ghost-like through the obscurity. "The palace is on fire;" and catching up the lamp, and again seizing the king, this time, however, only by the arm and with a more gentle grip, he succeeded in dragging him a few paces farther.

"This way! this way--"

"No," said the king, wrenching himself free, and coming to a dead standstill with his back resolutely planted against the wall! "I'll go no farther; not a yard. 'Tis some plot," he added, casting suspicious looks round from Lee's face to the darkness visible, and then again to the eager agitated countenance of the young man. "Some scurvy plot. Villain!" he cried, suddenly seizing Lawrence by the throat. "How many are there of you? Speak!"

It was only by something like a miracle, however, that Lee was still able to breathe. "Speak!" shouted the king, and his imperious tones echoed again and again through the vaulted place, till for the moment he might well have fancied that a host of conspirators were hidden away behind the pillared arches; but not a creature came to the rescue, and Charles's grip relaxed. "I cry your pardon," he said then, a little shamefacedly, and retaining his hold about Lee's shoulder more in kindness now than in anger. "Such doubts are unworthy. A miserable requital indeed for this good service you have shown me. Your face should be no traitor's. Nay, never blush. I thought this morning that 'twas as honest a one as I had seen for many a day, and should tell its own story."

[Sidenote: A desperate plan.]

"Yet even though my tongue helped it, your Majesty would not listen. Yet here as we stand," went on Lee, as Charles replied only by a shrug of his shoulders, "man to man, liege-man to his lord," and Lawrence fell on his knees at the king's feet, "I swear I spoke the truth. But it was to worse than deaf ears. All in vain--and so--and so--" his voice faltered.

"And so--Ods-fish, man!" cried Charles in bewildered astonishment at the agitation of Lee's face. "Don't be afraid. Speak out. And so?"

"I fired the palace."

"You!" cried the king, recoiling in horror.

"What else was to be done?" asked Lee, regaining his composure, and shrugging his shoulders in his turn! "We smoke out the fox's hole when we can't unearth him."

"To kill him after all, poor fellow," said the king, with a half smile, and a faint glimmer of the old suspicion in his dark eyes fixed on Lawrence, as though he was striving to penetrate to his inmost heart.

"Nay," bluntly answered the young man, "I have no wit for carrying on conceits of that kind, nor time for it neither. If I burnt out the fox, 'twas to save him from himself, and get him to make off out of harm's way."

"And what of the queen, and all my poor people?" cried the king, looking with troubled eyes along the way they had come. "A heavy ransom they are paying for my rescue. Let us get out of this place, and help, before every one of them is burned in bed."

[Sidenote: Out of danger.]

"'Tis but little enough harm they'll come to, I'll warrant," said Lee, in cool tones, and detaining the king with a firm hand. "The fire had a mighty pretty effect," he continued, with pride, "a mighty pretty effect; and so do a man's frills and furbelows, though he hasn't a thread of shirt underneath to bless himself with; and 'twas just that and no more--a flash in the pan, a snap-dragon, that has but just burned up all your Majesty's little favourite odds and ends, and rattle-traps, but I doubt it had not done a groat's worth of harm."

"That's reassuring," said the king dismally.

"Your Majesty may take my word for it," continued Lawrence. "I did but fire the wainscot of your chamber, as close as I could by the stone corridor, which I know cuts off all communication with the rest of the palace."

"But how did you know that?"

"One may learn a great deal--"

"By opening one's mouth, hey, and asking questions?"

[Sidenote: Lawrence dictates to the King.]

"By keeping it shut, and listening," said Lawrence. "Your Majesty may trust me for minding what I was about, and that I risked no chance against that sweet lady's life, just for the sake of saving your Majesty's."

"Well, well," said Charles, feeling more and more satisfied that he might place confidence in his deliverer. "But I like not these extremes," he went on, shivering and dragging his thin Indian silk garment about him. "First, you frizzle me within an inch of my life, and then you freeze me to the marrow. How long is it your pleasure that we stop in this dreary cellar?"

"So please your Majesty's own pleasure, you might be sleeping in your own bed-chamber at Whitehall by this time to-morrow night? 'Twould be the best course I can advise."

"I might do worse, I doubt," shivered the king.

"But you must leave Newmarket unattended and secretly. My horse stands at your Majesty's service."

"And a pretty figure I should cut upon him!" ruefully laughed the king, looking down at his airy attire. "To say nothing of my singed periwig here," and he passed his hand over the spot where the coal-black locks had been scorched and burnt.

"Your Majesty would in any case be safer for finding one of another colour to travel in; and if you'll but keep moving, I'll warrant that Master Alworth will help you to it, and all else you may need."

"Alworth! Richard Alworth!" cried Charles.

"Ay," said Lawrence. "Your Majesty, I take it, can trust him."

"With untold gold," warmly said the king--"with my crown jewels--"

"With yourself, then."

"Have with you, Master Lee;" and the last lingering doubt faded from his face. "Which way?"

[Sidenote: The private stair.]

"Up by this little staircase."