“’Tis the signal that she is beheaded,” he said with a ghastly face; “why drink the health of a dead woman?”
The little man grinned. “Why not?” he asked. “I may the sooner conjure her to speak to thee.”
“The fiend take thy conjuring and thy visions!” exclaimed Henge, uneasily; “keep them to frighten petticoats.”
Sanders chuckled maliciously. “You have a great scorn of petticoats since a woman rapped your pate,” he said.
“Curse you!” cried Sir Barton; “because you have me in your power, would you insult me? Did you send for me to-day for this sole purpose, your amusement?”
“Nay,” retorted the wizard, calmly, “you came for your instructions. Yonder lie the packets,—one to carry to our friends in Yorkshire, where, my lord privy seal having so roughly handled the jury, they are ripe for us; the other packet, being on your person, may be found, if need be, ’tis but a bluff.”
“A likely errand,” said Henge, bitterly, “when Cromwell’s spies are thick as harvest gnats. Verily, I thank you, Sir Wizard, but I made no such bargain.”
Sanders put out his hands with a deprecating gesture.
“As you will,” he said grimly; “there are others, and doubtless if your visit to the Lady Mary was known—”
Henge sat staring at the packets; in his mind had flashed a scheme so devilish that he was fascinated. For the moment, even the wizard’s covert threats fell on deaf ears; suddenly the possibility of vengeance, on a larger scale than he had dreamed, intoxicated his brain. The scheme was born full grown; he had but to execute it.