not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.

Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
his fist. "It is a good cause," he cried, "and God will not leave us
unless we leave Him."

"Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace," said
Grey, "and he succeeded."

"True," put in Fletcher. "But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support
of not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case."

Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
more bewildered than thoughtful.

"O man of little faith!" roared Ferguson in a passion. "Are ye to be
swayed like a straw in the wind?"

"I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We
were in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man,
never stare so," he said to Grey, "I am in it now and I am no' the man
to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a
course. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's
name. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had
we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering
under him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself."

"I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands," Grey
answered.

"How many hands have you?" asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.

"Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?" cried Grey, staring at
him.

"I am seldom of any other," answered Trenchard. "We shall no' want for
hands," Ferguson assured him. "Had ye arrived earlier ye might have seen
how readily men enlisted." He had risen and approached the window as he
spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full volume of sound that rose
from the street below.

"A Monmouth! A Monmouth!" voices shouted.

Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched
outward from the shoulder.

"Ye hear them, sirs," he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
eye. "That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
Him," and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding