He could not
move hand or foot. His body only appeared to live. From his shoulders to
his thighs he was alive; the rest was nothing. But he opened his eyes
and saw that his arms were laid by his side; and that he was no longer
in the wooden trough. He wondered at his hands; he wondered even if they
were his ... they were of an unusual colour and bigness; and there was
something like a tight-fitting bracelet round each wrist. Then he
perceived that he was shirtless and hoseless; and that the bracelets
were not bracelets, but rings of swollen flesh. But there was no longer
any pain or even sensation in them; and he was aware that his mouth
glowed as if he had drunk ardent spirits.

He was considering all this, slowly, like a child contemplating a new
toy. Then there came something between him and the light; he saw a
couple of faces eyeing him. Then the voice began again, at first
confused and buzzing, then articulate; and he remembered.

"Now, then," said the voice, "you have had but a taste of it...." ("A
taste of it; a taste of it." The phrase repeated itself like the catch
of a song.... When he regained his attention, the sentence had moved
on.)

"... these questions. I will put them to you again from the beginning.
You will give your answer to each. And if my lord is not satisfied, we
must try again."

"My lord!" thought the priest. He rolled his eyes round a little
further. (He dared not move his head; the sinews of his throat burned
like red-hot steel cords at the thought of it.) And he saw a little
table floating somewhere in the dark; a candle burned on it; and a
melancholy face with dreamy eyes was brightly illuminated.... That was
my lord Shrewsbury, he considered....

"... in what month that you first became privy to the plot against her
Grace?"

(Sense was coming back to him again now. He remembered what he had said
just now.)

"It was in August," he whispered, "in August, I think; two years ago.
Mr. Babington wrote to me of it."

"And you went to the Queen of the Scots, you say?"

"Yes."

"And what did you there?"

"I gave the message."

"What was that?"

"... That Mr. Babington was her servant always; that he regretted
nothing, save that he had failed. He begged her to pray for his soul,
and for all that had been with him in the enterprise."

(It appeared to him that he was astonishingly voluble, all at once. He
reflected that he must be careful.)

"And what did she say to that?"

"Sh