"That you are a fool as well as a knave!" was the Duke's unexpected reply. He had recovered his equanimity, and took a pinch of snuff as he spoke.
The plotter's eyes sparkled. "Why?" he cried with an oath. "And is that language for a gentleman?"
"A gentleman? Faugh!" cried my lord. "And why? Because you suppose your word to be of value. Whereas you should know that were you to go to Kensington and tell the King that you had informed me of this or that or the other, and were I to deny it, you would to Newgate for certain, and to the pillory perhaps--but I should be not a penny the worse. Your word forsooth! Why, man, you are crazed!"
"Ay, but if I had you followed here?" the other answered savagely. "If I can produce three witnesses to prove that you were with me to-day, and by stealth! And by stealth, my lord? What then?"
"Why, then this!" the Duke answered with composure. "And it is my answer. I shall go hence to the King and tell him all; and on your information, Mr. Ferguson, the Duke of Berwick will be arrested. Whatever my fate or his after that, I shall have done my duty and kept my oath as a privy-councillor, and the rest I leave to God! But for you," he continued, slowly and with solemnity, "who to gain a hold on me have betrayed the son of your King, your fate be on your own head!"
The plotter, who, I think, had expected any answer but this, and, it may be, had never considered his own position, should the Duke stand firm, roared out a furious "You lie!" And then again in a frenzy, as the consequences rose more clearly before him, "You lie!" he cried, striking his hand on the table. "You will not do it! You will not dare to do it!"
"Mr. Ferguson," the Duke answered haughtily, "I do not suffer persons of your condition to tell me what I dare, or do not dare; or persons of any condition to give me the lie. Be good enough to open the door!"
"Sign the paper!" the conspirator hissed. His face, at no time sightly, was now distorted by fear and the rage of defeat; while the chair on the back of which he leaned his left hand, jerked this way and that as if the palsy had him. "Sign the paper, will you? Or your blood be on your own head!"
The Duke's only answer was to point to the door with his cane. "Open it!" he said, his breath coming a little quickly, but his manner otherwise unmoved. "Do you hear me?"
But either Ferguson's rage had so much the mastery of him that he could no longer control himself, or he was desperate, seeing into what an abyss the other's firmness was pushing him; or from the first he had determined on this course in the last resort. At any rate at that word, and instead of complying, he fell back a step and with a dark face drew a pistol from the pocket of his long coat. "Sign!" he cried, his voice whistling in his throat, as he levelled the arm at my lord's head. "Sign, you Roman spawn, or I'll spill your brains! Sign, or you don't go out of this room alive! Has the Lord's foot been put on the neck of his enemies that such as you should divide the spoil!"