"Nay, that is false," broke in Ruth, "for it wanted almost ten minutes of midnight. The clock had not struck." "Girl!" cried Rumsey starting, and turning upon her a face grown ghastly pale; but immediately collecting himself he added, addressing the king, with a baleful smile upon his lips, "Let it be so, your M----. The young woman may be right. She is in Master Lee's confidence I doubt not; and he has whispered the gentle secret of his exploit to her. Ten minutes to midnight it might have been." "Villain!" furiously burst forth Lee. "And since he has imparted in sweet confidence to this--in sooth I think she just now said her name was--" [Sidenote: The accuser.] "Ruth Rumbold, yes," cried the girl in a loud ringing voice. "And 'tis you--you, Richard Rumsey, are the murderer of Sheriff Goodenough!" "You are certainly mighty wise, little mistress," he rejoined with a spasmodic twitch of his pallid lips. "Your Majesty," he went on, turning jauntily to the king, and with a careless wave of his hand towards Lee, "can see how the land lies betwixt these two. And this brave young bloodsucker is indeed to be envied so fair a special pleader. But it won't do, my dear," he added, addressing Ruth in jeering tones. "'Tis too grave a matter." "Ay, truly," said the bewildered Charles, again glancing over the paper in his hands. "Grave indeed!" "Scoundrel! double-dyed villain!" exclaimed Lee, writhing in his cords, and glaring at Rumsey. "Is it not enough that already your soul is black with its guilt, but you must accuse another of your crime?" "Words break no bones," coolly laughed Rumsey. "If ever now," he went on, pointing at Lee's bound hands, whose every vein stood out to bursting in his struggles to get free, "these inconvenient little knots should be loosed, you shall certainly be set to rant it at Drury Lane playhouse. You'd make Manager Betterton's fortune in a week. In the meantime," he added, turning to the king, "your Majesty sees before you the slayer of Thomas Goodenough." [Sidenote: For the defence.] "Ay, ay; he speaks truth at last!" cried Mistress Sheppard, and dashing forward, and squaring up to Rumsey, she shook her clenched fist in his face. "Woman!" he snarled, retreating a step, and his ashen lips quivering apart, like a half-cowed hyena's. "Oh! woman me as much as you please," she stormed on. "That don't frighten me much, I reckon. Yes, yes, woman I am, and Ruth here has told me all about it; and how the others being gone away--" "Others?" wonderingly interrupted the king. "Gone away?" "Ay, for sure. The other conspirators, your Majesty--being gone down into the vaults with Master Rumbold, to see the way they should escape by, if--when--" She hesitated a moment. "Go on, my good woman. I understand," said the king, "when their purpose should be accomplished."