Denis’s hand, now fully in the light, was extended for a moment, but sharply withdrawn, for the fingers to begin tapping impatiently upon the coverlet.
“Ah, you hesitate!” cried Henry. “Let me tell you that it is no time for hesitation, and that I shall brook no argument, accept nothing but a full and sufficient resignation made now upon this paper, which needs but your act and deed made fully by the addition of your royal name.”
Denis raised his hand slowly, and let it fall heavily upon the bed.
“Hah!” cried the King, in a tone which evinced triumph and intense satisfaction, as he rose to his feet and walked slowly to a side-table standing beneath one of the sconces, upon which were writing materials ready to the visitor’s hand. “I am glad,” continued Henry, “that you are acting so wise a part. I might call in my chamberlain and others of my people to witness your surrender, but I will spare the feelings of a brother monarch who is completely in my hands. Your signature, Sire, will suffice.” And as he spoke he took up and dipped a pen and seized a book, to bear them in company with the paper he held to the side of the bed, where he spread the paper upon the work.
“Now, Sire,” he continued, “at this moment we are enemies. Take this pen and add your royal name where I will place my finger, and I give you my kingly word that I will wipe out from the tablets of my memory the whole of your dastardly action, and become henceforth not only your brother of England, but your willing ally against all enemies who may rise up in an endeavour to imperil our thrones. There, Sire; I presume you are not too weak to write. Come: take the pen.”
Denis, who was now nearly at his wits’ end how to continue the comedy, and beginning to flinch in his dismay at having gone so far, raised his hand slowly and closed his fingers upon the pen, while with a sigh of satisfaction Henry placed his index finger, upon which a large gem was glittering, upon the blank spot beneath that which he had written upon the paper.
“Stop!” he cried suddenly. “I had forgotten. It is not written down there, but for it I will take your kingly word. You promise me to restore the jewel reft from my cabinet and hidden somewhere you best know where. Surely you can speak enough for this—the fewest words will do. You promise by your kingly word and all that is holy to restore that gem?”
He ceased speaking, and to one of those present the silence in that room seemed more than awful, till Henry spoke again.
“You hear me, sir? One word will do, and that word, Yes.”
The answer made Henry start back in amaze, for, desperate now, and nerving himself to meet the crisis which might mean the sacrifice of his life, Denis with a quick flick of his fingers sent the fully feathered pen flying from the gloom of the hangings where he lay far out into the room.