* * * * *

The next public event in the whole affair was the last and worst of all
the links that were being forged so swiftly: and the news of it came to
me as follows.

I had gone to sup in Aldgate, where I had listened to a good deal of
talk from some small gentry, as to the Papist plot; and had been happy
to hear three or four of them declare that they believed there was
nothing in it, and even the rest of them were far from positive on the
matter; and I had stayed late over my pipe with them, so that it was
long after my usual time when I returned towards my lodgings, walking
alone, for I said good-bye to the last of my companions in the City.

As I came up into the Strand, I saw before me what appeared to be the
tail of a great concourse of people, and heard the murmur of their
voices; and, mending my pace a little, I soon came up with them. I went
along for a little, trying to hear what they were saying upon the
affair, and to learn what the matter was; for by now the street was one
pack of folk all moving together. Little by little, then, I began to
hear that someone had been strangled, and that "he was found with his
neck broken," and then that "his own sword was run through his heart,"
and words of that kind.

Now I had heard talk before that Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was run away
with a woman, and to avoid the payment of his debts, which, if it were
true, were certainly a very strange happening at such a time, since he
was the magistrate before whom Oates had laid his information; but six
days were gone by, and I had not thought very much of it, for his
running away could not now in any way affect the information that had