“That ... that he was her servant till death; and ... and a thousand if he had them.  And so, ‘As Thy arms, O—­’”

“Water,” barked the voice.

Again came the rush as of cataracts; and a sensation of drowning.  There followed an instant’s glow of life; and then the intolerable pain came back; and the heavy, red-streaked darkness....

II

He found himself, after some period, lying more easily.  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.)