ed
there was more behind."

"What do you mean?" asked he.

"Well:" I said. "If His Grace of Monmouth will do nothing, will none of
his friends do it for him?"

"Of what nature?" asked my Lord.

"My Lord," said I, "need I say more?"

He was silent for a while; and I could see how his mind was a trifle
bewildered. But he did presently exactly what I hoped he would do.

"Mr. Mallock," he said, "you are right: there is more behind. And I
promise you you shall hear of it when the time comes. Is that enough?"

"That is enough, my Lord," said I. "I am content."

* * * * *

I was with Mr. Chiffinch before the gates were shut for the night; and
this was the report I gave him.

"I have learned three things at least," I said, when he had bolted the
door, and drawn the hanging across it. "First that they are
contemplating a rising as soon as they can get their men together; and
that it will be from Wapping and thereabouts that the insurrectionists
will come. Next that His Grace of Monmouth is more deeply involved than
we had thought. And the third thing is, that I have persuaded my Lord
Essex that I can be trusted to be a good traitor, and to report
everything; but that if they do not commit more important falsehoods to
me, I shall lose heart with them. We may expect then that after a little
while I shall have more vital and significant lies told me, whence we
can arrive at the truth."

"Is that everything?" said he.

"Ah! there is one thing more. They are trying to entangle my Lord
Russell; and they think that they will succeed, and so do I; but at
present he will not be caught."

CHAPTER VIII

We are drawing nearer now to the heart of the conspiracy that was
forming little by little, as an abscess forms in the body of a sick man.
For two months more no great move was made. I was summoned now and again
to such meetings as those which I have described: and sometimes one man
was there and sometimes another. They were becoming less cautious with
me in this--since I had by now the names of nearly all the Londoners
involved: and Mr. Chiffinch had the names of the principal men in
Scotland and the provinces, especially in the West, with whom they were
concerting. They still fed me with lies from time to time, in small
points; and I gained a little knowledge from these as to what they
wished me to believe, and hence as to what was indeed the truth.

It was in October that the n