Holles nodded his agreement, and the proposal was disclosed. It offered him a position which in an established government would have been dazzling. It was dazzling even as things were, to one in his desperate case, driven to the need of making a gambler’s throw. If on the one side he probably set his head, at least the stake they offered could hardly have been greater.
And they tempted him further by revelations of how far their preparations were advanced, and how thorough these were.
“Heaven,” said Rathbone, “is on our side. It has sent this plague to stir men to bethink themselves of the rulers they have chosen. Our agents have discovered four cases in the City to-day: one in Wood Street, one in Fenchurch Street, and two in Crooked Lane. The authorities hoped to keep it from the knowledge of the people. But we are seeing to that. At this moment our preachers are proclaiming it, spreading terror that men may be driven by it to the paths of righteousness.”
“When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be,” said Holles. “I understand.”
“Then you should see that all is ready, the mine is laid,” Tucker admonished him. “This is your opportunity, Randal. If you delay now....”
A tap at the door interrupted him. Tucker bounded up, propelled by his uneasy conspirator’s conscience. Rathbone, too, glanced round uneasily.
“Why, what’s to startle you?” said the Colonel quietly, smiling to behold their fears. “It is but my good hostess.”
She came in from the common room bearing a letter that had just been brought for Colonel Holles.
He took it, wondering; then, observing the great seal, a little colour crept into his cheeks. He spread the sheet, and read, under the observing eyes of his friends and his hostess, and they were all alike uneasy.
Twice he read that letter before he spoke. The unexpected had happened, and it had happened at the eleventh hour, barely in time to arrest him on the brink of what might well prove a precipice. Thus he saw it now, his vision altering with his fortunes.