[*] See Melville.
"Now by my father's soul!" began Huntly furiously.
"How!" said Secretary Lethington, with one of his cold and placid smiles; "has your lordship already forgotten the supper, and the bond?"
"Jesu Maria!" muttered Huntly; "I foresaw not this!"
"Your grace will hold me excused," said the Earl of Bothwell, grasping the bridle of Mary's palfrey; "but your own safety and the commonweal require that I should, without a moment's delay, lead you to my castle of Dunbar."
"Mother of God! How—why?" asked Mary in an agitated voice, as she gazed on the face of the Earl, which was pale as death; for the magnitude of the crime he contemplated, had for a moment appalled even himself. "With what am I menaced? Is there a raid among the Lennox men—an invasion of the English—or what? Who is my enemy?"
"James of Bothwell, as this sword shall prove!" exclaimed the young Earl of Huntly, making a furious blow at the noble's tempered helmet—a blow that must have cloven him to the chin, had not Bolton and Hob Ormiston crossed their lances, and interfered with the speed of light; but Hob's tough ash standard pole was cut in two.
"Mass!" he exclaimed; "now hold thee, Earl Huntly, or, with my jeddart staff, I will deal thee a dirl on the crown that will hang a scutcheon on the gate of castle Gordon for the next year."
The horsemen closed up with levelled lances, and the gentlemen of the queen's train were immediately disarmed.
"To Dunbar! to Dunbar!" cried Bothwell, leaping on horseback, but still retaining the queen's bridle.