ween six and seven o'clock in the evening. The
conspirators replied that they would be in readiness.

The morning had been dark and stormy, as nearly all the first days of
spring are in Scotland, and towards evening the snow and wind redoubled
in depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with Rizzio, and
Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times, could hear the
sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite, who was singing
those sweet melodies which have come down to our time, and which
Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs were for Mary a
reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in the train of the
Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but for Darnley they were
an insult, and each time he had withdrawn strengthened in his design.

At the appointed time, the conspirators, who had been given the password
during the day, knocked at the palace gate, and were received there so
much the more easily that Darnley himself, wrapped in a great cloak,
awaited them at the postern by which they were admitted. The five
hundred soldiers immediately stole into an inner courtyard, where they
placed themselves under some sheds, as much to keep themselves from
the cold as that they might not be seen on the snow-covered ground. A
brightly lighted window looked into this courtyard; it was that of
the queen's study: at the first signal give them from this window,
the soldiers were to break in the door and go to the help of the chief
conspirators.

These instructions given, Darnley led Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley,
Andrew Carew, and Douglas's bastard into the room adjoining the study,
and only separated from it by a tapestry hanging before the door. From
there one could overhear all that was being said, and at a single bound
fall upon the guests.

Darnley left them in this room, enjoining silence; then, giving them
as a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To me,
Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him come
in by his usual door the queen's suspicions might not be roused by his
unlooked-for visit.

Mary was at supper with six persons, having, say de Thou and Melville,
Rizzio seated on her right; while, on the contrary, Carapden assures
us that he was eating standing at a sideboard. The talk was gay and
intimate; for all were giving themselves up to the ease one feels at
being safe and warm, at a hospitable board, while the snow i