In the mean time, Mary and Bothwell went together into the hall where the servants were rejoicing and making merry at the wedding. French Paris was there, but his heart began to fail him in respect to the deed in which he had been engaged. He stood apart, with a countenance expressive of anxiety and distress. Bothwell went to him, and told him that if he carried such a melancholy face as that any longer in the presence of the queen, he would make him suffer for it. The poor conscience-stricken man begged Bothwell to release him from any further part in the transaction. He was sick, really sick, he said, and he wanted to go home to his bed. Bothwell made no reply but to order him to follow _him_. Bothwell went to his own rooms, changed the silken court dress in which he had appeared in company for one suitable to the night and to the deed, directed his men to follow him, and passed from the palace toward the gates of the city. The gates were shut, for it was midnight. The sentinels challenged them. The party said they were friends to my Lord Bothwell, and were allowed to pass on. They advanced to the convent gardens. Here they left a part of their number, while Bothwell and French Paris passed over the wall, and crept softly into the house. They unlocked the room where they had left the two watchmen with the gunpowder, and found all safe. Men locked up under such circumstances, and on the eve of the perpetration of such a deed, were not likely to sleep at their posts. All things being now ready, they made a slow match of lint, long enough to burn for some little time, and inserting one end of it into the gunpowder, they lighted the other end, and crept stealthily out of the apartment. They passed over the wall into the convent gardens, where they rejoined their companions and awaited the result. Men choose midnight often for the perpetration of crime, from the facilities afforded by its silence and solitude. This advantage is, however, sometimes well-nigh balanced by the stimulus which its mysterious solemnity brings to the stings of remorse and terror. Bothwell himself felt anxious and agitated. They waited and waited, but it seemed as if their dreadful suspense would never end. Bothwell became desperate. He wanted to get over the wall again and look in at the window, to see if the slow match had not gone out. The rest restrained him. At length the explosion came like a clap of thunder. The flash brightened for an instant over the whole sky, and the report roused the sleeping inhabitants of Edinburgh from their slumbers, throwing the whole city into sudden consternation.