Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/409

 1 566. ] THE DARNLE Y MARRIA GE. 389 as he passed ; Faldonside struck him sharply on the wrist he let go with a shriek, and as he was hurried through the anteroom the cries of his agony came back upon Mary's ear ; ' Madame, madame, save me ! save me ! justice I am a dead man ! spare my life ! ' Unhappy one ! his life would not be spared. They had intended to keep him prisoner through the night and hang him after some form of trial ; but vengeance would not wait for its victim. He was borne alive as far as the stairhead, when George Douglas, with the words ' This is from the King,' drove Darnley's dagger into his side ; a moment more and the whole fierce crew were on him like hounds upon a mangled wolf ; he was stabbed through and through with a hate which death was not enough to satisfy, and was then dragged head foremost down the staircase, and lay at its foot with sixty wounds in him. So ended Rizzio, unmourned by living soul save her whose favour had been his ruin, unheeded now that he was dead as common carrion, and with no epitaph on his remains except a few brief words from an old servant of the palace, so pathetic because so commonplace. The body was carried into the lodge and flung upon a chest to be stripped for burial. ' Here is his destiny/ the porter moralized as he stood by ; ' for on this chest was his first bed when he came to this place, and there now he lieth a very niggard and misknown knave.' l The Queen meanwhile, fearing the worst but not 1 RUTHVEN'S narrative.