The Black Douglas

by S. R. Crockett

The Chancellor and the tutor broke into laughter, but the marshal continued to smile his terrible smile of determinate evil.

"Listen," he said at last, "hear this, my Lord of Touraine; ever since we came to this kingdom, and, indeed, long before we left the realm of France, the Lady Sybilla intended nothing else than your deception and destruction. Poor dupe, do you not yet understand? She it was that cozened you with fair words. She it was that advised you to come hither that we might hold you in our hands. For her sake you obeyed. She was the willing bait of the trap your foes set for you. What think you of the Lady Sybilla now?"

William of Douglas did not answer in words, but as the marshal ceased speaking, he drew himself together like a lithe animal that sways this way and that before springing. His right hand dropped softly from his brother's shoulder upon the hilt of his own dagger.

Then with one sudden bound he was over the barrier and upon the dais. Almost his blade was at the marshal's throat, and but for the crossed partisans of two guards who stood on either side of de Retz, he had died there and then by the dagger of William Douglas. As it was, the youth was brought to a stand with his breast pressed vainly against the steel points, and paused there crying out in fury, "Liar and toad! Come out from behind these varlets that I may slay thee with my hand."

A score of men-at-arms approached from behind, and forced the young man back to his place.

"Bring in the Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, still smiling, while the judges sat silent and afraid at the anger of one man.

And even while the Earl stood panting after his outburst of furious anger, they opened the door at the back of the dais and through it there entered the Lady Sybilla. Instantly the eyes of William Douglas fixed themselves upon her, but she did not raise hers nor look at him. She stood at the farther side at the edge of the dais, her hands joined in front of her, and her hair streamed down her back and fell in waves over her white dress.

An angel of light coming through the open door of heaven could not have appeared more innocent and pure.

The Marshal de Retz turned towards his sister-in-law, and, with his eyes fixed upon hers and with the same pitiless chill in them, he said in a low tone, "Look at me."

The girl raised her eyes slowly, and, as it had been, reluctantly, and in them, instead of the meek calm of an angel, there appeared the terror and dismay of a lost soul that listens to its doom.