It has not been the intention of the authors of "The Fifth of November" to write an historical novel, though, throughout the story, they have endeavored to follow as closely as was consistent with the plot in hand, the historical facts collected by the various writers who have made the nature and workings of the "Gunpowder Plot" a special study. With one or two exceptions, the characters in the present romance have been borrowed from history, and, save in Chapters XXI and XXII, the lines of the story have followed those traced by the hand of the historian. In presenting to the public this "Romance of the Stuarts," indebtedness is acknowledged by the writers to Professor S. R. Gardiner's "What the Gunpowder Plot Was," and also to the history of England as set forth by Knight, Hume, Froude and Ridpath. THE AUTHORS. New York, February, 1898. THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER. CHAPTER I. WHAT BEFELL AT "THE SIGN OF THE LEOPARD." Snow had fallen through the day, and as night approached all objects were covered with a mantle of white. The noises incident to the life of a great city had long since become muffled and indistinct. The footfalls of those who traversed the streets could no longer be heard; and the only sounds which now and again broke the silence, were the voices of my lord's link-men, who, in goodly number, fully armed, carrying flaming torches whose lurid dancing light shone through the blinding snow, appeared at a distance to be a party of ancient saints come forth from their tombs to indulge in a ghostly frolic under cover of the night. The voices of the men, falling upon the snow-laden air, sounded dull and echo-less as they heralded the approach of a chair to some sharp turn or gateway. An armed escort in those days was no mark of royalty or distinction, for it was not well or safe for men to travel the streets alone after nightfall, as many a sinister face and cloaked form lurked hid in the shadow of secluded corners and dark by-ways, awaiting opportunity to cut the purse, or the throat, as need be, of the solitary wayfarer. Numbers were no guarantee of escaping unmolested; for of late the rogues had become so bold that it was a common thing for a party of gentlemen to be attacked successfully, as the ruffians mustered in their ranks many soldiers of fortune who had served in Flanders, France and Spain, and were well versed in the play of both sword and dagger. These acts of robbery and murder were confined to no one locality, but the vagabonds who perpetrated the deeds had haunts and places of common rendezvous, and as night fell, these dens poured forth upon the town their murder-bent crews.