Then a sheet of livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed and the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden through the battered doorway and over the wall.

For some moments steel rang on steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the accompaniment of voices, raised some in anger, some in pain.

But it was soon over, and a comparative stillness succeeded.
A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His Majesty was safe.

There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained--which was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing of the design there had been against his life.

A deep, bitter melancholy enwrapped his spirit.