sergeant found Brandon covered with wounds there was no
longer any doubt, and although hardly able to lift his hand he was
forced to dress and go with them. A horse litter was procured and we
all started to London.

While Brandon was dressing, I said I would at once go and awaken the
king, who I knew would pardon the offense when he heard my story, but
Brandon asked the sergeant to leave us to ourselves for a short time,
and closed the door.

"Please do nothing of the sort, Caskoden," said he; "if you tell the
king I will declare there is not one word of truth in your story.
There is only one person in the world who may tell of that night's
happenings, and if she does not they shall remain untold. She will
make it all right at once, I know. I would not do her the foul wrong
to think for one instant that she will fail. You do not know her; she
sometimes seems selfish, but it is thoughtlessness fostered by
flattery, and her heart is right. I would trust her with my life. If
you breathe a word of what I have told you, you may do more harm than
you can ever remedy, and I ask you to say nothing to any one. If the
princess would not liberate me ... but that is not to be thought of.
Never doubt that she can and will do it better than you think. She is
all gold."

This, of course, silenced me, as I did not know what new danger I
might create, nor how I might mar the matter I so much wished to mend.
I did not tell Brandon that the girls had left Greenwich, nor of my
undefined, and, perhaps, unfounded fear that Mary might not act as he
thought she would in a great emergency, but silently helped him to
dress and went to London along with him and the sheriff's sergeant.

Brandon was taken to Newgate, the most loathsome prison in London at
that time, it being used for felons, while Ludgate was for debtors.
Here he was thrown into an underground dungeon foul with water that
seeped through the old masonry from the moat, and alive with every
noisome thing that creeps. There was no bed, no stool, no floor, not
even a wisp of a straw; simply the reeking stone walls, covered with
fungus, and the windowless arch overhead. One could hardly conceive a
more horrible place in which to spend even a moment. I had a glimpse
of it by the light of the keeper's lantern as they put him in, and it
seemed to me a single night in that awful place would have killed me
or driven me mad. I protested and begged and tried to bribe, but it
was all of no