nger
to a certain window. Then the Sergeant being gone away, orders were
given for the pageant to move on; and through Ludgate, and by Paul's,
and up Chepe, and to Bow Church, it moved accordingly. Mr. Hugh Peters
preached for two hours as though nothing had happened. Being doubtless
under instructions, he made not the slightest allusion to the late
tragic Attempt; and at the banquet afterwards at the Guildhall, there
were only a few trifling rumours that his Highness had been shot at by a
mad woman from a window in Fleet Street; denial, however, being
speedily given to this by persons in Authority, who declared that the
disturbance without Ludgate had arisen simply from a drunken soldier of
the Trainbands firing his musketoon into the air for Joy.

But the Sergeant, with some soldiers of the Protector's own, walked
tranquilly into the house of Sir Fortunatus Geddings, and into the upper
chamber, where the would-be Avenger of Blood was surrounded by a throng
of men and women gazing upon her, half in horror, and half in
admiration. The Sergeant beckoned to her, and she arose without a
murmur, and went with him and the soldiers, two only being left as
sentinels, to see that no one stirred from the house till orders came.
By this time, from Ludgate to Blackfriars all was soldiers, the crowd
being thrust away east and west; and, between a lane of pikemen,
Arabella was brought into the street, hurried through the narrow lanes
behind Apothecaries' Hall, and so through the alleys to Blackfriars
Stairs, where a barge was in waiting, which bore her swiftly away to
Whitehall.

"You have flown at High Game, mistress," was the only remark made to her
by the Sergeant.

She was locked up for many hours in an inner chamber, the windows being
closed, and a lamp set on the table. They bound her, but, mindful of her
sex and youth, not in fetters, or even with ropes, contenting themselves
with fastening her arms tightly behind her with the Sergeant's silken
sash. For the Sergeant was of Cromwell's own guard, and was of great
authority.

At about nine at night the Sergeant and two soldiers came for her, and
so brought her, through many lobbies, to Cromwell's own closet, where
she found him still with his hat and baldric on, sitting at a table
covered with green velvet.

"What prompted thee to seek my Life?" he asked, without anger, but in a
slow, cold, searching voice.

"Blood for Blood!" she answered, with undaunted mien.

"What