And now begins a series of scenes most pitiable; Raleigh’s brains are indeed broken. He is old, worn-out with the effects of his fever, lamed, ruined, broken-hearted, and, for the first time in his life, weak and silly. He takes into his head the paltriest notion that he can gain time to pacify the King by feigning himself sick. He puts implicit faith in the rogue Mannourie, whom he has never seen before. He sends forward Lady Raleigh to London—perhaps ashamed—as who would not have been?—to play the fool in that sweet presence; and with her good Captain King, who is to engage one Cotterell, an old servant of Raleigh’s, to find a ship wherein to escape, if the worst comes to the worst. Cotterell sends King to an old boatswain of his, who owns a ketch. She is to lie off Tilbury; and so King waits Raleigh’s arrival. What passed in the next four or five days will never be truly known, for our only account comes from two self-convicted villains, Stukely and Mannourie. On these details I shall not enter. First, because one cannot trust a word of them; secondly, because no one will wish to hear them who feels, as I do, how pitiable and painful is the sight of a great heart and mind utterly broken. Neither shall I spend time on Stukely’s villanous treatment of Raleigh, for which he had a commission from James in writing; his pretending to help him to escape, his going down the Thames in a boat with him, his trying in vain to make honest King as great a rogue as himself. Like most rascalities, Stukely’s conduct, even as he himself states it, is very obscure. All that we can see is, that Cotterell told Stukely everything: that Stukely bade Cotterell carry on the deceit; that Stukely had orders from headquarters to incite Raleigh to say or do something which might form a fresh ground of accusal; that, being a clumsy rogue, he failed, and fell back on abetting Raleigh’s escape, as a last resource. Be it as it may, he throws off the mask as soon as Raleigh has done enough to prove an intent to escape; arrests him, and conducts him to the Tower.