"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.
"My God, my God!" said she, quivering from the internal tremor, and stretching her hands beseechingly toward the king, "do you not hear that frightful wail of the wretched? Sire, by the thought of your own dying hour, I conjure you have compassion on these miserable beings! Let them not, at least, be thrown alive into the flames.
Spare them this last frightful torture."
King Henry cast a wrathful look on the kneeling girl; then strode past her to the door, which led into the adjoining hall, in which the courtiers were waiting for their king.
He beckoned to the two bishops, Cranmer and Gardiner, to come nearer, and ordered the servants to throw the hall doors wide open.
The scene now afforded an animated and singular spectacle, and this chamber, just before so quiet, was suddenly changed to the theatre of a great drama, which was perhaps to end tragically. In the queen's bedchamber, a small room, but furnished with the utmost luxury and splendor, the principal characters of this scene were congregated. In the middle of the space stood the king in his robes, embroidered with gold and sparkling with jewels, which were irradiated by the bright light of the chandelier. Near him was seen the young queen, whose beautiful and lovely face was turned in anxious expectation toward the king, in whose stern and rigid features she sought to read the development of this scene.
Not far from her still knelt the young maiden, hiding in her hands her face drenched in tears; while farther away, in the background, were the two bishops observing with grave, cool tranquillity the group before them. Through the open hall doors were descried the expectant and curious countenances of the courtiers standing with their heads crowded close together in the space before the doors;and opposite to them, through the open door leading to the balcony, was seen the fiery, blazing sky, and heard the clanging of the bells and the rolling of the drama, the piercing shrieks and the yells of the people.
A deep silence ensued, and when the king spoke, the tone of his voice was so hard and cold, that an involuntary shudder ran through all present.
"My Lord Bishops of Winchester and Canterbury," said the king. "we have called you that you may, by the might of your prayers and the wisdom of your words, rid this young girl here from the devil, who, without doubt, has the mastery over her, since she dares charge her king and master with cruelty and injustice."The two bishops drew nearer to the kneeling girl; each laid a hand upon her shoulder, and bent over her, but the one with an expression of countenance wholly different from that of the other.
Cranmer's look was gentle and serious, and at the same time a compassionate and encouraging smile played about his thin lips.
Gardiner's features on the contrary bore the expression of cruel, cold-hearted irony; and the smile which rested on his thick, protruding lips was the joyful and merciless smile of a priest ready to sacrifice a victim to his idol.
