"Yes," said my Lord, cheerfully. "My carpenter has a rare gift of making friends. I told him everything, and he said that surely Colonel Anderson would serve the Queen if he knew."
"Colonel Anderson," answered Brand, "will obey the Queen's orders. Go to her and get a written command."
* * * * *
The Duke of Ulster was writing a letter to his son. "I am lonely," he wrote, and scratched out the words; "I am all alone," he wrote, and drew his pen hastily through the line. "I am left all alone. For thirty years I have laboured to leave to my son a great heritage of honour, to pass down to my heirs such——" He tore the paper to shreds and began again. How could written words carry his pain to another, or any confession, or any cry for help clear that estrangement!
For many days this poor traitor had been silent in the flames of his punishment, but now the fire burning within him kindled, and his mortally wounded spirit screamed for mercy. Only the night heard, only the pitiless walls rang back in answer. No human ear would ever hear that cry, no human heart would ever understand. In this night his soul died. Never again did he hope either for the help of men or the pity of God. Never again was he known to show mercy to either men or women, but fought with ruthless power in blind pain.
One whose name may not be given found fragments of scattered paper with the words upon them which the doomed man tried in vain to write to his son. The fragments have been by a strange chance preserved, surely the most pitiful scripture in all our national archives. Perhaps at the Day of Judgment this cry of a dying soul may yet be weighed and lie as heavy in the scales as Ulster's sin. So one prays who has himself need of mercy.
For a long time the Duke lay back motionless in his chair, his face bowed down upon his breast. Then an electric instrument stirred on the table beside him, clicking and throbbing out a printed message.
"MY LORD DUKE,
"I have the honour to warn you that the safe in your lordship's office will be broached to-night from the rear. We hope to take the assailant red-handed, but any papers of vital importance should be secured from a possible injury by explosives. I have the honour to be,
"Your Grace's Obedient Servant,
"PATRICK O'ROOKE, Sergeant."