n King went with them, as well
as Sir Walter's body-servant, Cotterell, and a Frenchman named Manourie,
who had made his first appearance in the Plymouth household on the
previous day. Stukeley explained the fellow as a gifted man of medicine,
whom he had sent for to cure him of a trivial but inconvenient ailment
by which he was afflicted.

Journeying by slow stages, as Sir Lewis had directed, they came at
last to Brentford. Sir Walter, had he followed his own bent, would have
journeyed more slowly still, for in a measure, as he neared London,
apprehensions of what might await him there grew ever darker. He spoke
of them to King, and the blunt Captain said nothing to dispel them.

"You are being led like a sheep to the shambles," he declared, "and
you go like a sheep. You should have landed in France, where you have
friends. Even now it is not too late. A ship could be procured..."

"And my honour could be sunk at sea," Sir Walter harshly concluded, in
reproof of such counsel.

But at the inn at Brentford he was sought out by a visitor, who brought
him the like advice in rather different terms. This was De Chesne, the
secretary of the French envoy, Le Clerc. Cordially welcomed by Ralegh,
the Frenchman expressed his deep concern to see Sir Walter under arrest.

"You conclude too hastily," laughed Sir Walter.

"Monsieur, I do not conclude. I speak of what I am inform'."

"Misinformed, sir. I am not a prisoner--at least, not yet," he added,
with a sigh. "I travel of my own free will to London with my good friend
and kinsman Stukeley to lay the account of my voyage before the King."

"Of your own free will? You travel of your own frets will? And you
are not a prisoner? Ha!" There was bitter mockery in De Chesne's
short laugh. "C'est bien drole!" And he explained: "Milord the Duke o
Buckingham, he has write in his master's name to the ambassador Gondomar
that you are taken and held at the disposal of the King of Spain.
Gondomar is to inform him whether King Philip wish that you be sent to
Spain to essay the justice of his Catholic Majesty, or that you suffer
here. Meanwhile your quarters are being made ready in the Tower. Yet you
tell me you are not prisoner! You go of your own free will to London.
Sir Walter, do not be deceive'. If you reach London, you are lost."

Now here was news to shatter Sir Walter's last illusion. Yet desperately
he clung to the fragments of it. The envoy's secretary must be at fault.

"'Ti