The voice jarred again; and startled him into a flash of coherence. He thought he saw a way out.
"Well?" snapped the voice. "Sent you?… Sent you whither?"
"Sent me to Chartley; where I saw her Grace … her Grace of the Scots; and … 'As Thy arms, O Christ….'"
"Now then; now then—! So your saw her Grace? And what was that for?"
"I saw her Grace … and … and told her what Mr. Babington had told me."
"What was that, then?"
"That … that he was her servant till death; and … and a thousand if he had them. And so, 'As Thy arms, O—'"
"Water," barked the voice.
Again came the rush as of cataracts; and a sensation of drowning. There followed an instant's glow of life; and then the intolerable pain came back; and the heavy, red-streaked darkness….