If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and
laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of
heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller,
he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly
yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester
felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that
instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing
and misunderstanding their meaning, the half-uttered, half-intimated
congratulations of the courtiers upon the favour of the Queen, carried
apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning,
from which most of them seemed to augur that he might soon arise from
their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued
yet proud smile with which he disclaimed those inferences was yet
curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited
to the uttermost; and supporting with one hand, and apparently without
an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife,
and pointing with the finger of the other to her half-dead features,
demanded in a voice that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman
like the last dread trumpet-call that is to summon body and spirit to
the judgment-seat, "Knowest thou this woman?"
As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the
mountains to cover them, Leicester's inward thoughts invoked the stately
arch which he had built in his pride to burst its strong conjunction,
and overwhelm them in its ruins. But the cemented stones, architrave and
battlement, stood fast; and it was the proud master himself who, as
if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth, kneeled down before
Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble flag-stones on which
she stood.
"Leicester," said Elizabeth, in a voice which trembled with passion,
"could I think thou hast practised on me--on me thy Sovereign--on me thy
confiding, thy too partial mistress, the base and ungrateful deception
which thy present confusion surmises--by all that is holy, false lord,
that head of thine were in as great peril as ever was thy father's!"
Leicester had not conscious innocence, but he had pride to support him.
He raised slowly his brow and features, which were black and swoln with
contending emotions, and only replied, "My head cannot fall but by the
sentence of my peers. To them I will plead, and not to a princess who
thus requites my faithful service."