a bugle. A responsive shout was heard to follow it, and then the doors of the apartment were burst open, and a band of soldiers, carrying drawn swords and lighted torches in their hands, rushed in. The pretended spirit advanced towards them, and throwing away the black mantle in which his form and face had been enveloped, discovered to the terrified and astonished Duchess the features of the Duke of York. “The fire! the fire!" said Hume, darting a look of agony at the dial. “Ha! I did indeed forget," said the Duke of Buckingham, who was the leader of the soldiers. "Fellows, extinguish that accursed light." The soldiers immediately advanced to the fire, and trampling upon the now faint and decaying embers, speedily succeeded in extinguishing it. The last spark, however, had scarcely been trodden out before the bell tolled the hour of midnight. "Heaven be praised!" said Hume; "the accursed deed has been prevented. Had yonder spark retained a gleam of light for an instant longer, the spirit of good King Henry had passed away for ever." Peace, double traitor !" said the Duke of York, good King Henry is doubtless indebted to thee for his life; but he has to thank not thy loyalty but thy malignity and avarice. Both however shall be gratified, agreeably to the promise which I made thee. The woman, Duchess though she be, who insulted thee, shall be brought to a terrible expiation of her crimes, and the reward which she promised thee for aiding and concealing her damnable practices shall be more than doubled for having revealed them." Eleanor gazed in sullen silence on the scene which had terminated all her hopes and probably her life. She saw herself too completely in the hands of her enemies for any effort at resistance or escape to be availing, and was too proud to expose the bitterness and humiliation of her feelings by tears or idle upbraidings. One scornful and malignant smile, which she glanced at Hume, was the only expression of her sentiments in which she indulged, and then she left the apartment with her arms fettered to those of Bolingbroke and the Witch of Eye, in the custody of Buckingham and the soldiers. The events which followed are too well known to require more than a brief recapitulation. The Duchess of Gloucester, Hume, the Witch of Eye, and Bolingbroke, were tried and condemned for the crimes of conspiring the death of the King, and practising the arts of magic and witchcraft. The witch was burned in Smithfield, Bolingbroke was hanged at Tyburn, and the Duchess sentenced to do open penance in four public places within the city of London, and afterwards to imprisonment for life in the Isle of Man. Hume was not only pardoned, but liberally rewarded. This man did not appear really to have possessed any knowledge of the occult sciences, but to have imposed on the credulity of the Duchess. That Margaret Jourdmain and Roger Bolingbroke were really magicians and wizards, was religiously believed by all; and the fact that the King, at the very moment that the magical fire was extinguished in the house of the Duke of Gloucester, recovered his full and perfect health at his palace at Westminster, gave support and confirmation to such a belief, howeer irrational it may now appear. The Duke of Gloucester, whatever might be his feelings at the disgrace and punishment of his Duchess, did not attempt any exercise of his authority for their prevention, but, to use the language of an old chronicler,* "toke all these thynges paciently and saied litle." *Hall. The Prophecy. Suffolk. Drones suck not eagles' blood, but rob bee-hives; It is impossible that I should die By such a lowly vassal as thyself; Thy words move rage and not remorse in me. Second Part of HENRY VI. |