friends that I told
you of. Now they have them all, and there is no longer any hope. They
found them behind the haystacks next to the garden where we dined. They
must have been there all night."

CHAPTER III

I

It was in the evening of the fourth day after their start that, riding
up alongside of the Blythe, they struck out to the northwest, away from
the trees, and saw the woods of Chartley not half a mile away. Robin
sighed with relief, though, as a fact, his adventure was scarcely more
than begun, since he had yet to learn how he could get speech with the
Queen; but, at least, he was within sight of her, and of his own country
as well. Far away, eastwards, beyond the hills, not twenty miles off,
lay Derby.

* * * * *

It had been a melancholy ride, in spite of the air of freedom through
which they rode, since news had come to them, in more than one place, of
the fortunes of the Babington party. A courier, riding fast, had passed
them as they sighted Buckingham; and by the time they came in, he was
gone again, on Government business (it was said), and the little town
hummed with rumours, out of which emerged, at any rate, the certainty
that the whole company had been captured. At Coventry, again, the
tidings had travelled faster than themselves; for here it was reported
that Mr. Babington and Mr. Charnoc had been racked; and in Lichfield,
last of all, the tale was complete, and (as they learned later)
tolerably accurate too.

It was from a clerk in the inn there that the story came, who declared
that there was no secrecy about the matter any longer, and that he
himself had seen the tale in writing. It ran as follows:

The entire plot had been known from the beginning, Gilbert Gifford had
been an emissary of Walsingham's throughout; and every letter that
passed to and from the various personages had passed through the
Secretary's hands and been deciphered in his house. There never had been
one instant in which Mr. Walsingham had been at fault, or in the dark:
he had gone so far, it was reported, as to insert in one of the letters
that was to go to Mr. Babington a request for the names of all the
conspirators, and in return there had come from him, not only a list of
the names, but a pictured group of them, with Mr. Babington himself in
the midst. This picture had actually been shown to her Grace in order
that she might guard herself against private assassination, since