"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 seems, when she was walking in the Park at Richmond with only her women and Sir Christopher Hatton, who is better at dancing than at fighting. Not a sign did she give, but she kept him in check with her royal eye, so that he durst not so much as draw his pistol from his cloak; but she owned afterwards to my Lady Norris that she could have kissed you when you came between, and all the more, when you caught her meaning and followed her bidding silently. You will hear of it again, Humps."
"However that may be, it is a noble thing to have seen such courage in a woman and a queen. But how could they let it go so near? I could shudder now to think of the risk to her person!"
"There goes more to policy than you yet wot of," said Will, in his patronising tone. "In truth, Barnwell had started off unknown to his comrades, hoping to have the glory of the achievement all to himself by forestalling them, or else Mr. Secretary would have been warned in time to secure the Queen."
"But wherefore leave these traitors at large to work mischief?"