Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/261

Rh Macbeth, who believed the witches to be unerring when they predicted his greatness, dared to hope that he could thwart their power when it ran counter to his own wishes. He plotted then to take the life of Banquo and his only child, young Fleance, that there might be no possibility of their succession to the crown.

To compass this he made a banquet, and invited Banquo as the noblest and most honored guest. At the time he was expected to ride through the vast grounds which surrounded the royal palace, three murderers, whom Macbeth had hired to do his bloodiest crimes, set upon Banquo and his son. Banquo was instantly dispatched, but Fleance escaped, and fled to England, where he knew he should join his royal cousins, Malcolm and Donalbain.

After the murder was done, and the bloody-handed assassins had received their fee, Macbeth entered his banquet-hall. His mind was much disturbed at the escape of Fleance, but he dissembled his trouble, and when he was seated at the feast with his nobles, he pledged their absent peer in his own royal glass, uttering smooth-tongued regrets that Banquo was not present with them.

Before his words were done, his guilty imagination began to work, and he seemed to see before him, in his own royal chair, the ghost of