The cottage lay but a hundred yards off, and soon I approached it. It was hard on six o'clock now, and I looked to find the inmates up and stirring. I wondered also whether Monmouth were gone to await Barbara and myself at the Merry Mariners in Deal; alas, we were too near the trysting-place! Or had he heard by now that the bird was flown from his lure and caged by that M. de Perrencourt who had treated him so cavalierly? I could not tell. Here was the cottage; but I stood still suddenly, amazed and cautious. For there, in the peaceful morning, in the sun's kindly light, there lay across the threshold the body of a man; his eyes, wide-opened, stared at the sky, but seemed to see nothing of what they gazed at; his brown coat was stained to a dark rusty hue on the breast, where a gash in the stuff showed the passage of a sword. His hand clasped a long knife, and his face was known to me. I had seen it daily at my uprising and lying-down. The body was that of Jonah Wall, in the flesh my servant, in spirit the slave of Phineas Tate, whose teaching had brought him to this pass. The sight bred in me swift horror and enduring caution. The two Dukes had been despatched, sorely against their will, in chase of this man. Was it to their hands that he had yielded up his life and by their doing that he lay like carrion? It might well be that he had sought refuge in this cottage, and having found there death, not comfort, had been flung forth a corpse. I pitied him; although he had been party to a plot which had well nigh caused my own death and taken no account of my honour, yet I was sorry for him. He had been about me; I grieved for him as for the cat on my hearth. Well, now in death he warned me; it was some recompense; I lifted my hat as I stole by him and slunk round to the side of the house. There was a window there, or rather a window-frame, for glass there was none; it stood some six feet from the ground and I crouched beneath it, for I now heard voices in the cottage. "I wish the rascal hadn't fought," said one voice. "But he flew at me like a tiger, and I had much ado to stop him. I was compelled to run him through." "Yet he might have served me alive," said another. "Your Grace is right. For although we hate these foul schemes, the men had the root of the matter in them." "They were no Papists, at least," said the second voice. "But the King will be pleased." "Oh, a curse on the King, although he's what he is to me! Haven't you heard? When I returned to the Castle from my search on the other side of the town, seeking you or Buckingham--by the way, where is he?" "Back in his bed, I warrant, sir." "The lazy dog! Well then, they told me she was gone with Louis. I rode on to tell you, for, said I, the King may hunt his conspirators himself now. But who went with them?" "Your Grace will wonder if I say Simon Dale was the man?"