spurned Rizzio forward with his foot.

The murderers swooped down upon their prey. Kerr of Faudonside
flung a noose about his body, and drew it tight with a jerk that
pulled the secretary from his knees. Then he and Morton took the
rope between them, and so dragged their victim across the room
towards the door. He struggled blindly as he went, vainly
clutching first at an overset chair, then at a leg of the table,
and screeching piteously the while to the Queen to save him. And
Mary, trembling with passion, herself struggling in the arms of
Darnley, flung an angry warning after them.

"If Davie's blood be spilt, it shall be dear blood to some of you!
Remember that, sirs!"

But they were beyond control by now, hounds unleashed upon the
quarry of their hate. Out of her presence Morton and Douglas
dragged him, the rest of the baying pack going after them. They
dragged him, screeching still, across the ante-chamber to the head
of the great stairs, and there they fell on him all together, and
so wildly that they wounded one another in their fury to rend him
into pieces. The tattered body, gushing blood from six-and-fifty
wounds, was hurled from top to bottom of the stairs, with a
gold-hilted dagger - Darnley's, in token of his participation in
the deed - still sticking in his breast.

Ruthven stood forward from the group, his reeking poniard clutched
in his right hand, a grin distorting his ghastly, vulturine face.
Then he stalked back alone into the royal presence, dragging his
feet a little, like a man who is weary.