Oddsfish! Part 20

"No, Sir; I do not," I said.

"Why; it is a very old trick;" went on His Majesty, "to see if a messenger will be faithful. Your folks did it first, I think, in Queen Bess her reign; so as to risk nothing. And you have kept it all this while!"

"I obeyed Your Majesty's commands," I said.

"Well; and you have delivered it to the right person." (He tossed the papers altogether upon the table and turned to me again.) "Now, sir; I had no real doubt of you; but others were not so sure; and I consented to this to please them; so now that all has been done, I can use you more freely, if you will: I have more than one mission which must be done for me; and if you like it, Mr. Mallock, you may have the first."

"Sir; I must go to France immediately. The hunt is up, after me, too."

"What do you mean by that?" he said sharply. "The hunt! What is that?"

"I would not weary Your Majesty with it all; but the truth is that the fellow Dangerfield, who came after me here, came yesterday with a magistrate and near a dozen men, to Hare Street to take me. I eluded them, and came to London."

"You eluded them! How was that?"

Well; I told him as shortly as I could; and he laughed outright when I came to my Cousin Dolly's part in it.

"Why: that was very wittily done!" he said. "The minx!"

I did not much like that; but I could not find fault with the King.

"And I was at Tyburn this morning, Sir."

"What! At Tyburn!"

"At Tyburn, Sir; and I was so sick at heart at what I saw there--five of Your Majesty's most faithful servants murdered in the name of justice, that I would not have cared greatly if I had been hanged with them."

His face darkened a little; but not with anger at me.

"It is a b.l.o.o.d.y business, as I have said," he said gently. "But come!--it is to France that you go."

"There is as good as any other place," I said, "so I be out of the kingdom. I have estates there, too."

"But to France will suit very well," said the King. "For it is to France that I designed to send you. I have plenty of couriers who can take written messages, and I have plenty of men who can talk--some think, too much; but I have no one at hand at this moment whom I can send to Court, and who will acquit himself well there, and that can take a message too--none, that is, that is not occupied. What do you say, Mr. Mallock?

Would a couple of months there please you?"

Here then was the time for my announcement; for I knew that if I did not make it then I should make it never.

I stood up; and my heart beat thickly.

"Sir," I said. "Six months ago I would have run anywhere to serve you.

But in six months many things have happened; and I cannot serve a Prince any more who cannot keep his word even to save the innocent. I had best be gone again to Rome, I think, and see what they can give me there. I am sick of England, which I once loved so much."

It was those very words--or others very like them that I said. I do not know where I got the courage to say them, for my life lay altogether in the King's hand: a word from him, or even silence, and I should have kicked my heels that night in Newgate, and a week or two later in the air, on a charge of being in with the Jesuits in their plot. Yet I said them; for I could say nothing else.

His Majesty's face turned black as thunder as I began; and when I was done it was all stiff with pride.

"That is your mind, Mr. Mallock, then?" he said.

"That is my mind, Sir," I answered him.

And then a change went over his face once more. G.o.d knows why he relented; I think it may have been that he had somewhat of a fancy for me, and remembered how I had pleased him and tried to serve him. And when he spoke, it was very gently indeed.

"Mr. Mallock," he said, "those are very brave words. But I think they are not worthy of a man of your parts. For consider; were you not sent here by the Holy Father to help a poor sinner who had need of it? And is it Catholic charity to leave the sinner because of his sins?"

I said nothing to that; for I was all confounded at his mildness. I suppose I had braced myself for something very different.

"It is true I am not a Catholic; but were you not sent here, in answer to my entreaty, that you might help to make it easy for me to become one? Is it apostolic, then, to run away so soon--"

"If Your Majesty," I burst out, "would but shew some signs--"

He lifted his eyebrows at that.

"Signs! In these days?" he said. "Why, I should hang, myself, in a week's time! Are these the days, think you, to shew Catholicism? Why; do you not think that my own heart is not near broken with all I have had to do?"

He spoke with extraordinary pa.s.sion; for that was his way when he was very deeply moved (which, to tell the truth, however, was not very often). But I have never known a man so careless and indolent on the surface, who had a softer heart than His Sacred Majesty, if it could but be touched.

"The blood of G.o.d's priests," he cried, holding the arms of his chair so that it shook--"their blood cries from the ground against me! Do you think I do not know that? Yet what can I do? I am tied and bound by circ.u.mstance. I could not save them; and in the attempt I could only lose my own life or throne as well. The people are mad for their blood!

Why Scroggs himself said in public at one of the trials, that even the King's Mercy could not come between them and death. And it is at this moment, then, that the servants to whom I had looked to help me, leave me! Go if you will, Mr. Mallock, and save your own soul. You shall have a safe pa.s.sage to France; but never again speak to me of Catholic charity."

Every word that he said rang true in my heart. It was true indeed, as he said, that no effort of his could have saved the men, and he could only have perished himself. There were scores of men, even among his own guards, I have no doubt, who would have killed him if he had shewn at this time the least mercy, or the least inclination towards Catholicism.

His back was to the wall; he fought not for himself only, but for Monarchy itself in England. There would have been an end of all, and we back again under the tyranny of the Commonwealth if he had acted otherwise; or as I had thought that he would.

He had scarcely finished when I was on my knees before him.

"Sir," I cried, "I am heartily ashamed of myself. I ask pardon for all that I have said. I will go to France or to anywhere else; and will think myself honoured by it, and by the forgiveness of Your Majesty.

Sir; let me be your servant once more."

The pa.s.sion was gone from his face as he looked down on me there; and he was, as before, the great Prince, with his easy manner and his unimaginable charm.

"Why that is very well said," he answered me. "And I shall be glad to have your services, Mr. Mallock. Mr. Chiffinch will give you all instructions."

"That was a very bold speech," said Mr. Chiffinch presently, when the King was gone away again--"which you made to His Majesty."

"Why, did you hear it?" I cried.

He smiled at me.

"Why, yes," he said. "I was behind the open door just within the further chamber. I was not sure of you, Mr. Mallock, neither was the King for that matter."

"Sure of me?"

"I thought perhaps we might have a real threatener of the King's life, at last," he said. "You had a very wild look when you came in, Mr.

Mallock."

"Yet His Majesty came; and unarmed!" I cried: "and as happy as--as a King!"