n the custody of a troop. I saw him marched through the
streets but just now, amid cries of 'Treason!' 'Away with him!' 'Hang
him!' sad to hear. The talk runneth that he is party in some great
conspiracy against her glorious Majesty, whose foes may Heaven confound!
If it be true, then is our Achilles wounded in the heel, and is like
enough to journey from here to Tyburn free of charges. Farewell, from
thy well-wisher."

This letter cast me into terrible woe; for it was plain by it that Ludar
was in mortal peril, and without a friend to help him. I could do
naught, for I knew not where he was taken, or if I did, what could I,
outside a stone wall, do for him within? Besides, the message about the
maiden put a service on me I was bound to fulfil. Yet what could I do?

Jeannette saw my trouble and shared it; and, being a shrewd lass,
advised me to go to Will Peake and hear what was this news of a new-
discovered treason, and who were in it?

So I went and found the Bridge (Sunday as it was), in a flutter. Will
Peake I could not see, but from another gossip I heard that news was
come of a terrible plot to murder her sacred Majesty and place on her
throne, with the help of Spanish rogues, the upstart Mary of Scotland.
Many wild stories were afloat concerning the business. One, that not a
few of her Majesty's trusted advisers were mixed in it; others, that the
Scotchwoman herself was prime mover; another, that it was the work of
the Spanish king, whose armies were on the coast waiting the signal to
land.

But as we stood, there came a mighty shouting from the Tower Hill, and,
running thither, we saw a man in a cart being conducted by twenty
horsemen to the prison. He was clad as a papist priest--yet, when I
looked at him, I seemed to know his face.

"Who goes there?" I asked of one who stood near.

"The head and front of it all," said he; "a renegade priest, Ballard by
name."

"Who hath travelled," said another, "on this accursed business in the
garb of a soldier by the name of Captain Fortescue."

"Fortescue!" cried I. "Why, to be sure, it was he! I knew I had seen
him."

"You saw him, where? what know you of this?" asked several persons
round, suspiciously. "If you be a friend of his, get you up on the cart
beside him."

I had a mind to make a rush that way, if haply I might get a single word
with the traitor as to where Ludar was. But I might as soon have tried
to get within hail of the Scotch