"True," added his vassal, the Laird of Whittinghame; "for the city horologue has struck ten, and by that hour the queen was to leave for Sebastian's ball."
"Bothwell, thou hast wisely changed all thine outward trumpery," said Ormiston.
"Behold," replied the Earl, displaying a coarse, canvass gaberdine above a coat-of-mail, for which he had exchanged his ball costume, "a pair of black velvet hoise, trimit with silver, and ane doublet of satin," as we are minutely informed by the Depositions in Proesentia Dominorum Secreti Concilii.
He carried in his hand a maul, to beat down doors or other obstructions.
The other conspirators, John of Bolton, Hob Ormiston of that Ilk, Hay of Tallo, Hume of Spott, and John Binney, a vassal of Whittinghame, were all well armed with coats-of-mail and pyne-doublets. At the palace porch, a gothic edifice, flanked on one side by a round tower, on the other by a projecting turret, they were met by French Paris, leading a sumpter-horse, laden with leathern mails. These contained powder, taken by the Earl from the royal store in the castle of Dunbar, of which he was governor.
Konrad imagined correctly, that some of the voices of his strange companions were not unfamiliar to his ear, but they conversed in low whispers; and feeling no way very comfortable in the company of men whose aspect, in armour and disguise, revealed that they were bent on some mission of darkness and danger, he thought only of escape. But, as if this very thought was divined, Black Ormiston stuck to his skirts like a burr; and, as they passed through the long dark arch of the portal, he whispered hoarsely,—
"Attempt not to escape; for I have here a dague that shoots a three-ounce ball, and I will not be slow in using it!"
Konrad, whose spirit could ill brook this, would have made some suitable rejoinder; but at this moment two archers of the guard challenged.
"Who are there?"
"Friends," replied the Earl of Morton.