a silver-laced cloak."

"Ha!"

"Hast seen him?"

"Ay, in company with Babington, on the day I came to London, passing
through Westminster."

"Very like. Their chief place of meeting was at a house at Westminster
belonging to a fellow named Gage. We took some of them there. Well,
this Ballard teaches poor Antony, by way of gospel truth, that 'tis the
mere duty of a good Catholic to slay the enemies of the church, and
that he who kills our gracious Queen, whom God defend, will do the
holiest deed; just as they gulled the fellow, who murdered the Prince
of Orange, and then died in torments, deeming himself a holy martyr."

"But it was not Babington whom I saw at Richmond."

"Hold, I am coming to that. Let me tell you the Queen bore it in mind,
and asked after you. Well, Babington has a number of friends, as
hot-brained and fanatical as himself, and when once he had swallowed
the notion of privily murdering the Queen, he got so enamoured of it,
that he swore in five more to aid him in the enterprise, and then what
must they do but have all their portraits taken in one picture with a
Latin motto around them. What! Thou hast seen it?"

"He showed it to me in Paul's Walk, and said I should hear of them, and
I thought one of them marvellously like the fellow I had seen in
Richmond Park."

"So thought her Majesty. But more of that anon. On the self-same day
as the Queen was to be slain by these sacrilegious wretches, another
band was to fall on this place, free the lady and proclaim her, while
the Prince of Parma landed from the Netherlands and brought fire and
sword with him."

"And Antony would have brought this upon us?" said Humfrey, still slow
to believe it of his old comrade.

"All for the true religion's sake," said Cavendish. "They were ringing
bells and giving thanks, for the discovery and baffling thereof, when
we came down from London."

"As well they might," said Humfrey. "But how was it detected and
overthrown? Was it through Langston?"

"Ah, ha! we had had the strings in our hands all along. Why, Langston,
as thou namest him, though we call him Maude, and a master spy called
Gifford, have kept us warned thoroughly of every stage in the business.
Maude even contrived to borrow the picture under colour of getting it
blessed by the Pope's agent, and lent it to Mr. Secretary Walsingham,
by whom it was privily shown to the Queen. Thereby she recognised the
rogue Barnwell, an Irishman it seem