But Ruthven, sullen and menacing, stood his ground.
“Let yon man come forth,” he repeated. “He has been here ower lang.”
“Over long?” she echoed, betrayed by her quick resentment.
“Aye, ower lang for the good o' Scotland and your husband,” was the brutal answer.
Erskine, of her guards, leapt to his feet.
“Will you begone, sir?” he cried; and after him came Beaton and the Commendator, both echoing the captain's threatening question.
A smile overspread Ruthven's livid face. The heavy dagger flashed from his belt.
“My affair is not with any o' ye, but if ye thrust yersels too close upon my notice—”
The Queen stepped clear of the table to intervene, lest violence should be done here in her presence. Rizzio, who had risen, stood now beside her, watching all with a white, startled face. And then, before more could be said, the curtains were torn away and half a score of men, whose approach had passed unnoticed, poured into the room. First came Morton, the Chancellor, who was to be dispossessed of the great seal in Rizzio's favour. After him followed the brutal Lindsay of the Byres, Kerr of Faudonside, black-browed Brunston, red-headed Douglas, and a half-dozen others.
Confusion ensued; the three men of the Queen's household were instantly surrounded and overpowered. In the brief, sharp struggle the table was overturned, and all would have been in darkness but that as the table went over the Countess of Argyll had snatched up the candle-branch, and stood now holding it aloft to light that extraordinary scene. Rizzio, to whom the sight of Morton had been as the removal of his last illusion, flung himself upon his knees before the Queen. Frail and feeble of body, and never a man of his hands, he was hopelessly unequal to the occasion.