"What does this mean?" cried Charles, as Lee, maintaining a stout resistance, succeeded for a moment in elbowing off the worst of the press, and hurrying forward, dropped, breathless and spent, upon one knee at the king's feet.
"Your Majesty," he began.
"The king?!!" broke in one universal shout of amazement from all present, excepting from the lips of Mistress Sheppard and Ruth Rumbold, and then an awe-stricken silence fell.
"Tell me—" began the king.
"I can tell your Majesty but this," said Lee, his voice falling clear and resonant through the utter stillness, "that I have been arrested by the order of the man who stands there, Richard Rumsey; but on what charge, I wait for him to say."
"On the charge," said Rumsey, advancing from the shadows, like some savage beast from its lair, with an evil twitching of his lips, and a serpent-like glitter in his cold eyes, which, however, carefully eluded the gaze of all present—"the charge of the murder of Sheriff Goodenough."
"What?!" shouted Lee, bounding to his feet.
"Committed," calmly continued Rumsey, still looking into space, "in the Warder's Room of Master Rumbold's house yonder yesterday morning."
The witness.
"Nay, that is false," broke in Ruth, "for it wanted almost ten minutes of midnight. The clock had not struck."