so much resembles the roar and rush of the sea, and which can be produced only by a large and excited mob.

The king, with a fierce curse, pushed open the glass door leading to the balcony, and walked out.

Catharine gazed after him with a strange, half-timid, half-scornful look. "I have not at least told him that I love him," muttered she. "He has construed my words as it suited his vanity. No matter. I will not die on the scaffold!"

With a resolute step, and firm, energetic air, she followed the king to the balcony. The roll of drums was kept up, and from all the steeples the bells were pealing. The night was dark and calm. All London seemed to slumber, and the dark houses around about stood up out of the universal darkness like huge coffins.

Suddenly the horizon began to grow bright, and on the sky appeared a streak of fiery red, which, blazing up higher and higher, soon illuminated the entire horizon with a crimson glow, and even shed its glaring fiery beams over the balcony on which stood the royal pair. Still the bells clanged and clamored; and blended with their peals was heard now and then, in the distance, a piercing shriek and a clamor as of thousands and thousands of confusedly mingled voices.

Suddenly the king turned to Catharine, and his countenance, which was just then overspread by the fire-light as with a blood-red veil, had now assumed an expression of savage, demoniacal delight.

"Ah," said he, "I know what it is. You had wholly bewildered me, and stolen away my attention, you little enchantress. I had for a moment ceased to be a king, because I wished to be entirely your lover. But now I bethink me again of my avenging sovereignty! It is the fagot- piles about the stake which flame so merrily yonder. And that yelling and clamor indicate that my merry people are enjoying with all their soul the comedy which I have had played before them to- day, for the honor of God, and my unimpeachable royal dignity."

"The stake!" cried Catharine, trembling. "Your majesty does not mean thereby to say that right yonder, men are to die a cruel, painful death--that the same hour in which their king pronounces himself happy and content, some of his subjects are to be condemned to dreadful torture, to a horrible destruction! Oh, no! my king will not overcloud his queen's wedding-day with so dark a veil of death. He will not wish to dim my happiness so cruelly."

The king laughed. "No, I will not darken it, but light it up with bright names," said he; and as, with outstretched arm, he pointed over to the glaring heavens, he continued: "There are our wedding- torches, my Kate, and the most sacred and beautiful which I could find, for they burn to the honor of God and of the king. [Footnote: "Life of King Henry the Eighth, founded on Authentic and Original Documents." By Patrick Fraser Tytler. (Edinburgh, 1887, p. 440.)] And the heavenward flaring flames which carries up the souls of the heretics will give to my God joyous intelligence of His most faithful and obedient son, who, even on the day of his happiness, forgets not his kingly duty, but ever remains the avenging and destroying minister of his God."

He looked frightful as he thus spoke. His countenance, lit up by the fire, had a fierce, threatening expression; his eyes blazed; and a cold, cruel smile played about his thin, firmly-pressed lips.

"Oh, he knows no pity!" murmured Catharine to herself, as in a paroxysm of anguish she stared at the king, who, in fanatical enthusiasm, was looking over toward the fire, into which, at his command, they were perhaps hurling to a cruel, torturing death, some poor wretch, to the honor of God and the king. "No, he knows no pity and no mercy."

Now Henry turned to her, and laying his extended hand softly on the back of her slender neck, he spanned it with his fingers, and whispered in her ear tender words and vows of love.

Catharine trembled. This caress of the king, however harmless in itself, had in it for her something dismal and dreadful. It was the involuntary, instinctive touch of the headsman, who examines the neck of his victim, and searches on it for the place where he will make the stroke. Thus had Anne Boleyn once put her tender white hands about her slender neck, and said to the headsman, brought over from Calais specially for her execution: "I pray you strike me well and surely! I have, indeed, but a slim little neck." [Footnote: Tytler, p. 382] Thus had the king clutched his hand about the neck of Catharine Howard, his fifth wife when certain of her infidelity, he had thrust her from himself with fierce execrations, when she would have clung to him. The dark marks of that grip were still visible upon her neck when she laid it on the block. [Footnote: Leti, vol. i, p. 193]

And this dreadful twining of his fingers Catharine must now endure as a caress; at which she must smile, which she must receive with all the appearance of delight.

While he spanned her neck, he whispered in her ear words of tenderness, and bent his face close to her cheeks.

But Catharine heeded not his passionate whispers. She saw nothing save the blood-red handwriting of fire upon the sky. She heard nothing save the shrieks of the wretched victims.

"Mercy, mercy!" faltered she. "Oh, let this day be a day of festivity for all your subjects! Be merciful, and if you would have me really believe that you love me, grant this first request which I make of you. Grant me the lives of these wretched ones. Mercy, sire, mercy!"

And as if the queen's supplication had found an echo, suddenly was heard from the chamber a wailing, despairing voice, repeating loudly and in tones of anguish: "Mercy, your majesty, mercy!" The king turned round impetuously, and his face assumed a dark, wrathful expression. He fastened his searching eyes on Catharine, as though he would read in her looks whether she knew who had dared to interrupt their conversation.

But Catharine's countenance expressed unconcealed astonishment. "Mercy, mercy!" repeated the voice from the interior of the chamber.

The king uttered an angry exclamation, and hastily withdrew from the balcony.

CHAPTER IV.

KING BY THE WRATH OF GOD.

"Who dares interrupt us?" cried the king, as with headlong step he returned to the chamber--"who dares speak of mercy?"

"I dare!" said a young lady, who, pale, with distorted features, in frightful agitation, now hastened to the king and prostrated herself before him. "Anne Askew!" cried Catharine, amazed. "Anne, what want you here?"

"I want mercy, mercy for those wretched ones, who are suffering yonder," cried the young maiden, pointing with an expression of horror to the reddened sky. "I want mercy for the king himself, who is so cruel as to send the noblest and the best of his subjects to the slaughter like miserable brutes!"

"Oh, sire, have compassion on this poor child!" besought Catharine, turning to Henry, "compassion on her impassioned excitement and her youthful ardor! She is as yet unaccustomed to these frightful scenes--she knows not yet that it is the sad duty of kings to be constrained to punish, where they might prefer to pardon!"

Henry smiled; but the look which he cast on the kneeling girl made Catharine tremble. There was a death-warrant in that look!

"Anne Askew, if I mistake not, is your second maid of honor?" asked the king; "and it was at your express wish that she received that place?"

"Yes sire."

"You knew her, then?"

"No, sire! I saw her a few days ago for the first time. But she had already won my heart at our first meeting, and I feel that I shall love her. Exercise forbearance, then, your majesty!"

But the king was still thoughtful, and Catharine's answers did not yet satisfy him.

"Why, then, do you interest yourself for this young lady, if you did not know her?"

"She has been so warmly recommended to me."

"By whom?"

Catharine hesitated a moment; she felt that she had, perhaps, in her zeal, gone too far, and that it was imprudent to tell the king the truth. But the king's keen, penetrating look was resting on her, and she recollected that he had, the first thing that evening, so urgently and solemnly conjured her to always tell him the truth. Besides, it was no secret at court who the protector of this young maiden was, and who had been the means of her obtaining the place of maid of honor to the queen, a place which so many wealthy and distinguished families had solicited for their daughters.

"Who recommended this lady to you?" repeated the king, and already his ill-humor began to redden his face, and make his voice tremble.

"Archbishop Cranmer did so, sire," said Catharine as she raised her eyes to the king, and looked at him with a smile surpassingly charming.

At that moment was heard without, more loudly, the roll of drums, which nevertheless was partially drowned by piercing shrieks and horrible cries of distress. The blaze of the fire shot up higher, and now was seen the bright flame, which with murderous rage licked the sky above.

Anne Askew, who had kept respectful silence during the conversation of the royal pair, now felt herself completely overcome by this horrible sight, and bereft of the last remnant of self-possession.