About an hour after the last guest had gone, in a large house belonging to a banished earl, where Featherstone had resided for the past two weeks, there was a full meeting of the Royalist chiefs, including those who had been at Mr. Windsor's, and many more. They had come singly from many quarters, but all on foot, and they had entered by a door on a quiet side street. There were perhaps forty men in all.
Here were old and dignified noblemen, more than one of whom wore threadbare coats and other signs of actual poverty; and here were young spirits aflame with the hope of action. Here a lot of antiquated baronet-squires flock together, and yonder stands a knot of grizzled colonels with the professional air of men awaiting orders. Here is the old Duke of Bayswater, listening through his eyeglasses, while Geoffrey Ripon and Featherstone have a quiet jest with Mr. Sydney.
Shortly after midnight—at about the same moment that Mrs. Oswald Carey received the bank-notes from Mr. Bugbee—the hum of conversation ceased in this meeting of the Royalists, and all eyes were turned toward a table in the centre of the long drawing-room, where stood John Dacre, who had just entered the room, his hands filled with papers.
Dacre was in the uniform of a staff officer, and on his breast he wore the battle-cross he had won in his first campaign, and also some gaudier honors awarded him for loyalty and devotion to the cause of the King.
The strong light of the chandelier showed the tense lines of his finely-cut face, which was white with excitement, and his eyes burned beneath his brows with a flame too strong to be subdued by any outer light.
Before he had uttered a word he had in some way imparted to many of those around him something of his own exaltation and intensity of spirit. He laid on the table the papers he had carried, and looked round the room with his face proudly raised.
"Gentlemen!" he said, holding his voice from an exulting cry, "our campaign has begun. We are no longer without a leader. Our monarch has come to claim his throne, and, if necessary, to win it by the sword. This night King George sleeps in London. To-morrow he will sit upon the throne of England. God Save the King!"
But, though death might be the consequence, a brave cheer burst from the hearts of some of those who heard—some, but only a few, and among these were Geoffrey, Featherstone, and the grizzled colonels.
To many others that cheer seemed as deadly an outburst as the roar of artillery. For a moment all stood as before; then they broke and mingled, talking excitedly, and a goodly number edged toward the door, and soon made their way out of the house.
But at least twenty men remained, while Dacre issued orders, handed instructions already written, or verbally repeated important words to the officers who should the next day head the revolution.