“Ah, I knew it, I knew it!” screamed the king. “And it was this that made me sleepless, and ate into my body like red-hot iron.”
And as he fastened on Douglas his eyes flashing with rage, he asked, with a grim smile: “Can you prove that these Howards are traitors? Can you prove that they aim at my crown?”
“I hope to be able to do so,” said Douglas. “To be sure, there are no great convincing facts—”
“Oh,” said the king, interrupting him with a savage laugh, “there is no need of great facts. Give into my hand but a little thread, and I will make out of it a cord strong enough to haul the father and son up to the gallows at one time.”
“Oh, for the son there is proof enough,” said the earl, with a smile: “and as regards the father, I will produce your majesty some accusers against him, who will be important enough to bring the duke also to the block. Will you allow me to bring them to you immediately?”
“Yes, bring them, bring them!” cried the king. “Every minute is precious that may lead these traitors sooner to their punishment.”
Earl Douglas stepped to the door and opened it. Three veiled female figures entered and bowed reverentially.
“Ah,” whispered the king, with a cruel smile, as he sank back again into his chair, “they are the three Fates that spin the Howards’ thread of life, and will now, it is to be hoped, break it off. I will furnish them with the scissors for it; and if they are not sharp enough, I will, with my own royal hands, help them to break the thread.”
“Sire,” said Earl Douglas, as, at a sign from him, the three women unveiled themselves—“sire, the wife, the daughter, and the mistress of the Duke of Norfolk have come to accuse him of high treason. The mother and the sister of the Earl of Surrey are here to charge him with a crime equally worthy of death.”
“Now verily,” exclaimed the king, “it must be a grievous and blasphemous sin which so much exasperates the temper of these noble women, and makes them deaf to the voice of nature!”