His Majesty was in residence at Hampton Court, but that made little difference. He lived so quietly and saw so few people, that he might, the sentry thought, as well have stayed at Loo. He only came, as was well known, to open Parliament, and the moment it was up he would be off again to Holland—a poor compliment to England; and now there was not the excuse of the campaigns.
The sentry yawned again and stretched himself, after carefully resting his musketoon against the dark wall; then he looked up the stairs, which were painted with great, scrambling, heathen figures that swarmed up to the roof, where they were lost in the fast gathering shadows. He then walked up and down to keep himself warm, and began to wonder how much longer now before he was changed; it was difficult to keep count of the time because he had lost the last chiming of King Henry's great, painted clock.
Presently the door at the head of the stairs opened, very slowly, but with a distinct sound in the perfect silence.
The sentry caught up his musketoon, thinking that this was one of the officers from the guard-room, and peered cautiously up the stairway.
It was, however, a gentleman in private clothes who was slowly closing the door after him with, it seemed, some difficulty.
The sentry, who knew no one had gone up, wondered who it could be. The stairs were so dark that he could distinguish no more than a slight figure, hatless, and wearing a cloak.
There was a moment's pause and silence, then the new-comer began to descend the wide, shadowed stairs, and the sentry knew who it was—there was only one person who moved about the palace with that slow and painful step, and that was the King.
The man drew back, rigid, to his post. He wondered that the King should be coming down the state staircase unattended and on such an inclement day. As he stood, stiff at the salute, he watched the frail figure crawling with dragging pauses through the dusk.
The King had one hand on the heavy balustrade, and, by grasping this, helped himself along. His head was bowed, and he continually paused to cough or gasp for breath, his hesitating and unequal steps began to rasp in the sentry's brain—he wished some one else would come. It seemed an intolerable length of time as the King made his difficult progress from step to step, and the cloaked figure with the bent, hidden face and the one white hand, so thin that every bone in it showed, moving slowly down the baluster, affected the solitary watcher with a sense almost of terror.
As the King approached this terror increased, as if some ghostly or unearthly presence neared. The hall and stairway rapidly darkened, and the King was but a shadow among shadows when he at length reached the last step and stood grasping the post with his left hand and holding his heart with his right.