fatalism, and only shook his head. Barnwell
again denied any purpose of injuring the Queen, and when Hatton spoke
of his appearance in Richmond Park, he said all had been for conscience
sake. So said Henry Donne, but with far more piety and dignity,
adding, "fiat voluntas Dei;" and Thomas Salisbury was the only one who
made any entreaty for pardon.

Speeches followed from the Attorney-General, and from Sir Christopher
Hatton, and then the Lord Chief Justice Anderson pronounced the
terrible sentence.

Richard Talbot sat with his head bowed between his hands. His son had
begun listening with wide-stretched eyes and mouth, as boyhood hearkens
to the dreadful, and with the hardness of an unmerciful time, too apt
to confound pity with weakness; but when his eye fell on the man he had
followed about as an elder playmate, and realised all it conveyed, his
cheek blanched, his jaw fell, and he hardly knew how his father got him
out of the court.

There was clearly no hope. The form of the trial was such as to leave
no chance of escape from the utmost penalty. No witnesses had been
examined, no degrees of guilt acknowledged, no palliations admitted.
Perhaps men who would have brought the Spanish havoc on their native
country, and have murdered their sovereign, were beyond the pale of
compassion. All London clearly thought so; and yet, as Richard Talbot
dwelt on their tones and looks, and remembered how they had been
deluded and tempted, and made to believe their deed meritorious, he
could not but feel exceeding pity for the four younger men. Ballard,
Savage, and Barnwell might be justly doomed; even Babington had, by his
own admission, entertained a fearfully evil design; but the other three
had evidently dipped far less deeply into the plot, and Tichborne had
only concealed it out of friendship. Yet the ruthless judgment
condemned all alike! And why? To justify a yet more cruel blow! No
wonder honest Richard Talbot felt sick at heart.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN THE TOWER.

"Here is a letter from Mr. Secretary to the Lieutenant of the Tower,
Master Richard, bidding him admit you to speech of Babington," said
Will Cavendish. "He was loath to give it, and nothing but my Lord
Shrewsbury's interest would have done it, on my oath that you are a
prudent and discreet man, who hath been conversant in these matters for
many years."

"Yea, and that long before you were, Master Will," said Richard, always
a little ente