CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
EDWARD AND RICHARD PLANTAGENET, THE BOYS WHO WERE MURDERED IN THE TOWER.
A horseman stood at the gate of the Tower of London, and demanded entrance in the name of the king, Richard Iii.
On hearing the summons, and the authority claimed by the stranger, the governor, Sir Thomas Brackenbury, directed that he should be admitted, and deliver his message.
"Read this," said the man, handing a missive sealed with the royal seal.
Sir Thomas read the document hastily, and as he read his face grew troubled.

For a long time he was silent; then addressing the king's messenger, he said-- "Know you the contents of this letter ?" "How should I know ?" replied the other evasively.
"The king directs me here," said Sir Thomas, "to do a deed horrible and unworthy of a man.

He demands that I should rid him of the two lads now lying in this Tower in my custody." "And what of that ?" said the king's messenger.

"Is it not necessary to the country's peace?
And will _you_, Sir Thomas, render so base an ingratitude for the favours you have received at the king's hands by refusing him this service ?" "Not even with the sanction of a king will Thomas Brackenbury hire himself out as a butcher.

My office and all I have," he added, "I hold at His Majesty's pleasure.