"_Post Scriptum_: I have overtook my messenger--a poor country carrier-- to tell thee strange news. This Ludar hath returned suddenly from his journey in the custody of a troop. I saw him marched through the streets but just now, amid cries of 'Treason!' 'Away with him!' 'Hang him!' sad to hear. The talk runneth that he is party in some great conspiracy against her glorious Majesty, whose foes may Heaven confound! If it be true, then is our Achilles wounded in the heel, and is like enough to journey from here to Tyburn free of charges. Farewell, from thy well-wisher." This letter cast me into terrible woe; for it was plain by it that Ludar was in mortal peril, and without a friend to help him. I could do naught, for I knew not where he was taken, or if I did, what could I, outside a stone wall, do for him within? Besides, the message about the maiden put a service on me I was bound to fulfil. Yet what could I do? Jeannette saw my trouble and shared it; and, being a shrewd lass, advised me to go to Will Peake and hear what was this news of a new- discovered treason, and who were in it? So I went and found the Bridge (Sunday as it was), in a flutter. Will Peake I could not see, but from another gossip I heard that news was come of a terrible plot to murder her sacred Majesty and place on her throne, with the help of Spanish rogues, the upstart Mary of Scotland. Many wild stories were afloat concerning the business. One, that not a few of her Majesty's trusted advisers were mixed in it; others, that the Scotchwoman herself was prime mover; another, that it was the work of the Spanish king, whose armies were on the coast waiting the signal to land. But as we stood, there came a mighty shouting from the Tower Hill, and, running thither, we saw a man in a cart being conducted by twenty horsemen to the prison. He was clad as a papist priest--yet, when I looked at him, I seemed to know his face. "Who goes there?" I asked of one who stood near. "The head and front of it all," said he; "a renegade priest, Ballard by name." "Who hath travelled," said another, "on this accursed business in the garb of a soldier by the name of Captain Fortescue." "Fortescue!" cried I. "Why, to be sure, it was he! I knew I had seen him." "You saw him, where? what know you of this?" asked several persons round, suspiciously. "If you be a friend of his, get you up on the cart beside him." I had a mind to make a rush that way, if haply I might get a single word with the traitor as to where Ludar was. But I might as soon have tried to get within hail of the Scotch Queen herself, so closely was he fenced in. "He is no friend," growled I, "but a vile enemy and traitor, whom I would to God I had run through the body when I had the chance at Carlisle, months since." Then to avoid more questions and get away from the rabble, I hastened back and told all to Jeannette. She was very grave. "What think you now?" she asked.