The news soon spread through London that Fryth was in the tower, and several priests and bishops immediately went thither to try to bring him back to the pope. Their great argument was that More had confuted his treatise on the Lord’s Supper. Fryth asked to see the confutation, but it was refused him. One day the Bishop of Winchester having called up the prisoner, showed it to Fryth, and, holding it up, asserted that the book quite shut his mouth: Fryth put out his hand, but the bishop hastily withdrew the volume. More himself was ashamed of the apology and did all he could to prevent its circulation. Fryth could only obtain a written copy, but he resolved to answer it immediately. There was no one with whom he could confer, not a book he could consult, and the chains with which he was loaded scarcely allowed him to sit and write.[306] But reading in his dungeon by the light of a small candle the insults of More, and finding himself charged with having collected all the poison that could be found in the writings of Wickliffe, Luther, Œcolampadius, Tyndale, and Zwingle, this humble servant of God exclaimed: ‘No! Luther and his doctrine are not the mark I aim at, but the Scriptures of God.’[307] ‘He shall pay for his heresy with the best blood in his body,’ said his enemies; and the pious disciple replied: ‘As the sheep bound by the hand of the butcher with timid look beseeches that his blood may soon be shed, even so do I pray my judges that my blood may be shed _to-morrow_, if by my death the king’s eyes should be opened.’[308] Before he died, Fryth desired to save, if it were God’s will, one of his adversaries. There was one of them who had no obstinacy, no malice: it was Rastell, More’s brother-in-law. Being unable to speak to him or to any of the enemies of the Reformation, he formed the design of writing in prison a treatise which should be called the _Bulwark_. But strict orders had recently arrived that he should have neither pen, ink, nor paper.[309] Some evangelical Christians of London, who succeeded in getting access to him, secretly furnished him with the means of writing, and Fryth began. He wrote ... but at every moment he listened for fear the lieutenant of the Tower or the warders should come upon him suddenly and find the pen in his hand.[310] Often a bright thought would occur to him, but some sudden alarm drove it out of his mind, and he could not recall it.[311] He took courage, however: he had been accused of asserting that good works were of no service: he proceeded to explain with much eloquence all their utility, and every time he repeated: ‘Is that nothing? is that still nothing? Truly, Rastell,’ he added, ‘if you only regard that as useful which justifies us, the sun is not useful, because it justifieth not.’[312]