to sue for
mercy, tyrant! We acknowledge no other ruler than Herne the Hunter."

"Then seek him in hell!" cried Henry, dealing the speaker a tremendous
blow on the head with his staff, which brought him senseless to the
ground.

The others immediately closed round him, and endeavoured to seize the
king.

"Ha! dogs--ha! traitors!" vociferated Henry, plying his staff with great
activity, and bringing down an assailant at each stroke; "do you dare to
lay hands upon our sacred person? Back! back!"

The determined resistance offered by the king, supported as he was by
Suffolk, paralysed his assailants, who seemed more bent upon securing
his person than doing him injury. But Suffolk's attention was presently
diverted by the attack of a fierce black hound, set upon him by a stout
fellow in a bearded mask. After a hard struggle, and not before he had
been severely bitten in the arm, the duke contrived to despatch his
assailant.

"This to avenge poor Bawsey!" cried the man who had set on the hound,
stabbing at Suffolk with his knife.

But the duke parried the blow, and, disarming his antagonist, forced
him to the ground, and tearing off his mask, disclosed the features of
Morgan Fenwolf.

Meanwhile, Henry had been placed in considerable jeopardy. Like Suffolk,
he had slaughtered a hound, and, in aiming a blow at the villain who set
it on, his foot slipped, and he lay at his mercy. The wretch raised his
knife, and was in the act of striking when a sword was passed through
his body. The blow was decisive; the king instantly arose, and the
rest of his assailants-horse as well as foot--disheartened by what had
occurred, beat a hasty retreat. Harry turned to look for his deliverer,
and uttered an exclamation of astonishment and anger.

"Ah! God's death!" he cried, "can I believe my eyes? Is it you, Sir
Thomas Wyat?"

"Ay," replied the other.

"What do you here? Ha!" demanded the king. "You should be in Paris."

"I have tarried for revenge," replied Wyat.

"Revenge!--ha!" cried Henry. "On whom?"

"On you," replied Wyat.

"What!" vociferated Henry, foaming with rage. "Is it you, traitor, who
have devised this damnable plot?--is it you who would make your king a
captive?--you who slay him? Have you leagued yourself with fiends?"

But Wyat made no answer; and though he lowered the point of his sword,
he regarded the king sternly.

A female figure now rushed forward, and bending before the king, cried
in an implorin