"What have you done to obtain information?" asked Dacre.
"At eleven o'clock the escort waiting at the station in London telephoned us that the train had gone and the King had not arrived. We waited ten minutes and then I telephoned direct to the house of the King's banker and received in answer these words: 'The King left here at two o'clock this morning to go on board his steam-yacht. He has sailed for America.' In reply to my questions, no reason was given for his going, as no one there knew, and Bugbee had not returned since the King's departure."
Featherstone folded his arms and looked at Dacre, on whom again all eyes turned. He held in one hand the royal banner, fast to the halyards, and in the other hand his watch.
At this moment the artillery trumpet heard before sounded much nearer, and it was answered, apparently, by other trumpets at different points of the camp.
"Gentlemen," said Dacre, drawing up his tall figure with superb pride, and looking calmly round the tent, "in two minutes it will be noon—the hour of our movement. Yonder rides the brave man who will proclaim the Monarchy, and it is too late now to warn him or his fellow-officers and patriots. We may draw back; but they will go on. The world will be the witness. If the King has been false to us—and we do not know that he has—we shall be true to our cause and to ourselves."
There was a pause. Dacre's eyes were on the dial in his hand.
"Gentlemen!" he cried, as he placed the watch in his pocket, "it is twelve o'clock! Shall I raise the King's flag?"
"Ay! Up with it!" rang out the brave shout.
At that instant the noonday gun boomed, and had the Royalists listened they might have heard the rumble of artillery and the rattling of cavalry surrounding them in a vast circle. But had they heard it they would not have been stayed. To withdraw now, to sneak away from the very brink of danger, would be worse than death. They must go on to the end. The world's eyes were on them, or would be to-morrow; the world is always looking at yesterday.
Like bees from a hive they swarmed, a handful of men, from the door of the mess-tent, drawing their swords to conquer a kingdom for a king who had run away. There was a noble despair in their hearts.