They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn. It was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a long table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for the best part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near at hand, came to startle the whole room.
There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to which none could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden exclamation, very pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his sleeve.
"Sit down," said he. "Sit down. It will be nothing."
"Nothing?" echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard in a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded on every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty was murdered.
In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every occupant save two--Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in the streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard smoked on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst Richard stood stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even greater certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps to destroy, Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth armed with pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in the last extremity; to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This knowledge gave Richard positive assurance that the volleys they had heard must have been fired by some party that had fallen upon Blake's men and taken them by surprise.
And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had undertaken. His fault it was--No! not his, but this villain's who sat there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and fingers.
Trenchard looked up startled.
"What the devil...?" he began.
"It is your fault, your fault!" cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his lips livid. "It was you who lured me hither."
Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. "Now, what a plague is't you're saying?" he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking in him the instinct of self-preservation.