"Get you gone to-night from Hampton, sir," said Cromwell, "to whatever place seems good—here you shall no longer be safe."
"Ah," cried Charles, "is this the end of all your wily advances? I am not safe!"
"Because I cannot protect you when what Major Harrison knows is spread abroad among the army."
The King's right hand left his chain; he pressed his fingers over his heart; on the black velvet they looked thin and white beyond nature.
"The hand of God is against you," said Cromwell sombrely. "He does not mean that you shall again rule in this land. I would have made treaty with you as the Gibeonites made with David—and I would not ask from you the lives of seven, as they asked for the sons of Saul, but only your own word pledged openly. But you could not keep it, but dealt with the children of Belial and all the array of the ungodly."
Charles took one delicate step backwards.
"These are mighty words," he said.
"They are mighty doings," replied Cromwell. "Not of mean things or small things or the things concerning one man or another am I speaking, but of great things, the displeasure of God on this wretched land, the means we must take to revoke His judgment.... Much blood hath been shed," he added, with a sudden flash in his voice, "but not that which must be before we find peace."
"I know not of what you speak," muttered the King.
"You very well know," replied Cromwell, and through the obscure web of his words a meaning of passion, of force and fire did gleam, like gold or flame. "You know what you have done. How you have deceived and gone crookedly. But God is not mocked. Hath He not said, 'Though they dig into Hell thence shall mine hand take them, though they climb up into Heaven thence shall I pull them down'? And out of darkness and secrecy hath He revealed your designs that you may not bring more evil upon England."