o
go out; to wait was the only course that remained to the king. He made
sure again that the doors were well fastened, put his sword under his
pillow, extinguished his lamp for fear the light might betray him, and
awaited in silence for his servant's arrival; but the hours passed away,
and the servant did not come. At one o'clock in the morning, Bothwell,
after having talked some while with the queen, in the presence of the
captain of the guard, returned home to change his dress; after some
minutes, he came out wrapped up in the large cloak of a German hussar,
went through the guard-house, and had the castle gate opened. Once
outside, he took his way with all speed to Kirk of Field, which he
entered by the opening in the wall: scarcely had he made a step in the
garden than he met James Balfour, governor of the castle.

"Well," he said to him, "how far have we got?

"Everything is ready," replied Balfour, "and we were waiting for you to
set fire to the fuse". "That is well," Bothwell answered--"but first I
want to make sure that he is in his room."

At these words, Bothwell opened the pavilion door with a false key,
and, having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at Darnley's
door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by going to sleep;
but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to his agitation.
Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it was, provided that
he was really in his room. He went down again in silence, then, as he
had come up, and taking a lantern from one of the conspirators, he went
himself into the lower room to see if everything was in order: this room
was full of barrels of powder, and a fuse ready prepared wanted but a
spark to set the whole on fire. Bothwell withdrew, then, to the end
of the garden with Balfour, David, Chambers, and three or four others,
leaving one man to ignite the fuse. In a moment this man rejoined them.

There ensued some minutes of anxiety, during which the five men looked
at one another in silence and as if afraid of themselves; then,
seeing that nothing exploded, Bothwell impatiently turned round to the
engineer, reproaching him for having, no doubt through fear, done his
work badly. He assured his master that he was certain everything was
all right, and as Bothwell, impatient, wanted to return to the house
himself, to make sure, he offered to go back and see how things stood.
In fact, he went back to the pavilion, and, putting his head t