In the morning, the inexorable host of the Red Lion and others, who had made themselves so active in his persecution, went to the place where they had bound him.
The water had ebbed several feet; the stake was still standing there among the dark slime and sedges—but the cords were cut, and the unfortunate had disappeared.
CHAPTER VI.
REMORSE.
All day and all the livelong night he pour'd,
His soul in anguish, and his fate deplored;
While every moment skimm'd before his sight,
A thousand forms of horror and affright.
Tasso.
Bothwell was sitting alone in his apartments at Holyrood. The fire burned cheerfully in the sturdy iron grate, and threw a ruddy glow on the gigantic forms of Darius and Alexander, who seemed ready to start from the gobeline tapestry into life and action. The Earl's sword and dagger hung on one knob of his chair; his headpiece and a wheel-lock caliver on the other; for there were dangerous rumours abroad in the city, and he knew not the moment in which he might be required to use them.
Let us take a view of him as he sat gazing fixedly into the fire, that glowed so redly between the massive bars.
A change had come over his features since the preceding night. They had acquired a more severe style of manly beauty. His noble brow was more pale and thoughtful in expression, and was already marked by those lines which are indicative of sorrow and remorse. But there were times when his keen dark eye assumed a diabolical glitter, and the redness of the fire shed an infernal brightness on his face. His lip was curled by bitterness; his brows were knit; and then nothing could surpass the scorn and misanthropy pervading the aspect of the fierce and haughty regicide.
Yes! he knew himself a destroyer; though, strange to say, he felt his personal importance increased by the awful reflection that he was so. He had more than once slain men in mutual strife; but never till now did he feel himself a—murderer.
Murderer! he repeated it in a low voice and then started, looking round fearfully as if he dreaded the figures might hear him. He frequently caught himself muttering it, coupled with his own name. They seemed synonymous. His mind was full of incoherence and dread, and a regret so intense, that at times he smote his breast and wrung his hands in agony, or turned to a flask of Burgundy to drown all recollection; and so much was he absorbed in the fierce current of his own corroding thoughts, that he heard not the rising storm that shook the turrets of the palace, howled through the arcades of its ancient courts, and tossed the branches of its venerable trees.