• And what I say next I partly saw
• And partly I heard in sooth,
• And partly since from the murderers' lips
• The torture wrung the truth.

• For now again came the armèd tread,
• And fast through the hall it fell;
• But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
• By the voice without I could tell
• That Robert Stuart had come with them
• 650Who knew that chamber well.

• And over the space the Græme strode dark
• With his mantle round him flung;
• And in his eye was a flaming light
• But not a word on his tongue.

• And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
• And he found the thing he sought;
• And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
• And O God! I fainted not!

• And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
• 660All smoking and smouldering;
• And through the vapour and fire, beneath
• In the dark crypt's narrow ring,
• With a shout that pealed to the room's high roof
• They saw their naked King.

• Half naked he stood, but stood as one
• Who yet could do and dare:
• With the crown, the King was stript away,—
• The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—
• But still the Man was there.

• But a cry came from the troop above:—
• “If him thou do not slay,
• The price of his life that thou dost spare
• Thy forfeit life shall pay!”

• O God! what more did I hear or see,
• Or how should I tell the rest?
• 730But there at length our King lay slain
• With sixteen wounds in his breast.

• O God! and now did a bell boom forth,
• And the murderers turned and fled;—
• Too late, too late, O God, did it sound!—
• And I heard the true men mustering round,
• And the cries and the coming tread.

• But ere they came, to the black death-gap
• Somewise did I creep and steal;
• And lo! or ever I swooned away,
• 740Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay
• In the Pit of Fortune's Wheel.

---

• And now, ye Scotish maids who have heard
• Dread things of the days grown old,—
• Even at the last, of true Queen Jane
• May somewhat yet be told,
• And how she dealt for her dear lord's sake
• Dire vengeance manifold.

• 'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,
• In the fair-lit Death-chapelle,
• 750That the slain King's corpse on bier was laid
• With chaunt and requiem-knell.

• And all with royal wealth of balm
• Was the body purified;
• And none could trace on the brow and lips
• The death that he had died.

• In his robes of state he lay asleep
• With orb and sceptre in hand;
• And by the crown he wore on his throne
• Was his kingly forehead spann'd.

• 760And, girls, 'twas a sweet sad thing to see
• How the curling golden hair,
• As in the day of the poet's youth,
• From the King's crown clustered there.

• And if all had come to pass in the brain
• That throbbed beneath those curls,
• Then Scots had said in the days to come
• That this their soil was a different home
• And a different Scotland, girls!

• And the Queen sat by him night and day,
• 770And oft she knelt in prayer,
• All wan and pale in the widow's veil
• That shrouded her shining hair.

• And I had got good help of my hurt:
• And only to me some sign
• She made; and save the priests that were there,
• No face would she see but mine.