“Believe me, Stafford,” he said, “it is a sad day to me that sees you here.  I hoped you had escaped.”

A spasm of anger swept over the Duke’s face; then he smiled and seizing De Lacy’s fingers gripped them hard.

“But for treachery and ingratitude baser than Hell’s deepest damned you would not see me here,” he said.  “And it is a brave and noble heart that beneath the Plantagenet’s very eye dares show open friendship for the traitor Buckingham.  God knows it is sweet after my life lately; yet be advised, De Lacy, it is dangerous to your standing and, mayhap, your liberty as well; best pass me by on the other side.”

Aymer made a gesture of dissent.  “The King trusts me,” he said.  “He will not doubt my faith.”

Stafford laughed sarcastically.  “Pardieu! has the Devil turned saint that Gloucester has come to trust a mortal man!  At least, I shall soon see if it has changed his fierce spirit, for here is Ratcliffe to lead me to the Presence. . .  Does our Cousin of England desire our company, Sir Richard?  If so, we are quite ready to embrace him.”

But Ratcliffe was not one to do his present duty with levity on his tongue, and he bowed with stiff formality.

“Will you come with me, my lord?” he said.

“Au revoir, De Lacy,” smiled the Duke.  “Now, to brave the Boar in his lair and see him show his tusks.”

And with an air of easy indifference, this man, for whom the world had held such vast possibilities if he had but known how to attain them, went to meet his doom.  For that his life was forfeited Stafford well knew; he had been taken in arms against the King and death would be his portion.

Yet the judgment came with a stern swiftness that startled the entire Court; and within the very hour that Shropshire’s Sheriff entered Salisbury, was the scaffold for the execution being put in place in the courtyard of the inn.

From the window of the room in which he was confined, Buckingham idly watched the work; and as he stood there, the King and the Duke of Norfolk came forth with a few attendants and rode gayly away.

A scowl of darkest hatred distorted his face, and he shook his fist at Richard—­then laughed; and the laugh grew into a sneer, that after the features were composed again still lingered about the mouth.

“It was well for the Plantagenet he did not grant the interview,” he
muttered; “else------”  From within his doublet, he took a long silver
comb, such as men used to dress their flowing hair and of which,
naturally, he had not been deprived, and touching a secret spring, drew
from the heavy rim a slender dagger.

“It is a pretty bit of Italian craft and methinks would have cut sure and deep,” he mused.  He felt the blade and tested its temper by bending it nigh double . . .  “Why should I not cheat yonder scaffold and scorn the tyrant to the end?” . . . then with calm determination returned it to its sheath.  “It would give them cause to dub me coward, and to say I would have weakened at the final moment.  A Stafford dare not risk it.”