rked through judgment, and thus must it begin!"
returned the young man. "But I would save thee, Humfrey," he added.
"Go thou back to Plymouth, and be warned to hold aloof from that prison
where the keepers will meet their fit doom! and the captive will be set
free. Thou dost not believe," he added. "See here," and drawing into
the most sheltered part of the chantry, he produced from his bosom a
picture in the miniature style of the period, containing six heads,
among which his own was plainly to be recognised, and likewise a face
which Humfrey felt as if he should never forget, that which he had seen
in Richmond Park, quailing beneath the Queen's eye. Round the picture
was the motto--

"Hi mihi sunt comites quos ipsa pericula jungunt."

"I tell thee, Humfrey, thou wilt hear--if thou dost live to hear--of
these six as having wrought the greatest deed of our times!"

"May it only be a deed an honest man need not be ashamed of," said
Humfrey, not at all convinced of his friend's sanity.

"Ashamed of!" exclaimed Babington. "It is blest, I tell thee, blest by
holy men, blest by the noble and suffering woman who will thus be
delivered from her martyrdom."

"Babington, if thou talkest thus, it will be my duty to have thee put
in ward," said Humfrey.

Antony laughed, and there was a triumphant ring very like insanity in
his laughter. Humfrey, with a moment's idea that to hint that the
conspiracy was known would blast it at once, if it were real, said, "I
see not Cuthbert Langston among your six. Know you, I saw him only
yestereven going into Secretary Walsingham's privy chamber."

"Was he so?" answered Babington. "Ha! ha! he holds them all in play
till the great stroke be struck! Why! am not I myself in Walsingham's
confidence? He thinketh that he is about to send me to France to watch
the League. Ha! ha!"

Here Humfrey's other companions turned back in search of him; Babington
vanished in the crowd, he hardly knew how, and he was left in
perplexity and extreme difficulty as to what was his duty as friend or
as subject. If Babington were sane, there must be a conspiracy for
killing the Queen, bringing in the Spaniards and liberating Mary, and
he had expressly spoken of having had the latter lady's sanction, while
the sight of the fellow in Richmond Park gave a colour of probability
to the guess. Yet the imprudence and absurdity of having portraits
taken of six assassins before the blow was struc