Sir Myles Strangford, Secretary for War, rose to give answer.
"Your Majesty," cried the War Secretary, "we are loyal. We will take the oath and serve!"
"Sir!" our Lady flushed with rage. "Do I hear you speak of oaths?"
For a moment her voice was drowned in a roar of musketry. "My patience is at an end. Rupert is dead, Ulster is dead; shall I spare you? I let you live while you are loyal to me, and at the slightest sign of treason I shall kill. As you tore up the Constitution, so I reign—I reign in the way of my fathers—so long as there is danger, absolute Monarch. Gentlemen of the Guard, you may withdraw—we need no protection while our Council sits!"
She rose from her throne, she turned her back upon the Council, and so stood waiting until she should be alone with her sullen, mutinous, vengeful officers. They saw that she looked out through the bayed windows; not the tears which blinded her or the forlorn gesture of her prayer for help.
The gentlemen-at-arms had swung to half sections and marched out from the chamber before our Lady moved. These windows, from a high salient of the Palace, commanded Whitehall. Half veiled in mist, the departmental buildings flashed with a thousand tiny points of fire, the rifle flame, the blaze from heavy artillery, then the glare of exploding shells. For now the crackling of musketry was drowned by spitting, shrieking machine guns, and the great roar of battle.
Sir Myles Strangford came and stood beside our Lady's throne as though on guard. A shell screamed close above the roof, a stray bullet crashed through the window and almost grazing Margaret's hair, lodged in the wall behind.
"Sir Myles," said our Lady, turning to the Secretary for War, "can the Departments hold out?"
"Your Majesty, for Heaven's sake, take shelter."
"Are the Departments safe?" she insisted, smiling.