scouting among his old comrades, arrived with news more ominous still.  “The coaches have returned to Charing Cross.  The guards that were sent round to Richmond have just come back to Kensington at full gallop, the flanks of the horses all white with foam.  I have had a word with one of the Blues.  He told me that strange things are muttered.”  Then the countenances of the assassins fell; and their hearts died within them.  Porter made a feeble attempt to disguise his uneasiness.  He took up an orange and squeezed it.  “What cannot be done one day may be done another.  Come, gentlemen, before we part let us have one glass to the squeezing of the rotten orange.”  The squeezing of the rotten orange was drunk; and the company dispersed.667

A few hours elapsed before all the conspirators abandoned all hope.  Some of them derived comfort from a report that the King had taken physic, and that this was his only reason for not going to Richmond.  If it were so, the blow might still be struck.  Two Saturdays had been unpropitious.  But Sunday was at hand.  One of the plans which had formerly been discussed and abandoned might be resumed.  The usurper might be set upon at Hyde Park Corner on his way to his chapel.  Charnock was ready for any enterprise however desperate.  If the hunt was up, it was better to die biting and scratching to the last than to be worried without resistance or revenge.  He assembled some of his accomplices at one of the numerous houses at which he had lodgings, and plied there hard with healths to the King, to the Queen, to the Prince, and to the Grand Monarch, as they called Lewis.  But the terror and dejection of the gang were beyond the power of wine; and so many had stolen away that those who were left could effect nothing.  In the course of the afternoon it was known that the guards had been doubled at the palace; and soon after nightfall messengers from the Secretary of State’s office were hurrying to and fro with torches through the streets, accompanied by files and musketeers.  Before the dawn of Sunday Charnock was in custody.  A little later, Rockwood and Bernardi were found in bed at a Jacobite alehouse on Tower Hill.  Seventeen more traitors were seized before noon; and three of the Blues were put under arrest.  That morning a Council was held; and, as soon as it rose, an express was sent off to call home some regiments from Flanders; Dorset set out for Sussex, of which he was Lord Lieutenant; Romney, who was Warden of the Cinque Ports, started for the coast of Kent; and Russell hastened down the Thames to take the command of the fleet.  In the evening the Council sate again.  Some of the prisoners were examined and committed.  The Lord Mayor was in attendance, was informed of what had been discovered, and was specially charged to look well to the peace of the capital.668