The links were forging swiftly.

I do not know, even now as I write, how it was that Sir Edmund met his end, whether he had killed himself, as I think--for he was of a melancholiac disposition, as was his father and his grandfather before him--or whether, as indeed I think possible, he was murdered by the very man who swore so many Catholic lives away, by way of giving colour to his own designs--for if a man will swear away twenty lives, what should hinder him from taking one?
One thing only I know, that no Catholic, whether old or young, Jesuit or not, saint or sinner, had any act or part in it; and on that I would lay down my own life.
By the time that I arrived at the rising mound--for a force mightier than prudence drove me to see the end--the head of the great concourse was beginning to arrive.

Across the street from side to side stretched the company, all tramping together and murmuring like the sound of the sea.

It was as if all London town was gone mad: for I do not believe there were above twenty men in that great mob, who were not persuaded that here was the corroboration of all that had been said upon the matter of the plot; and that the guilt of the Papists was made plain.
Some roared, as they came, threats and curses upon the Pope, the Jesuits, and every Catholic that drew breath; but the most part marched silently, and more terribly, as it appeared to me.

The street was becoming as light as day, for torches were being kindled as they came; and, at the last, came the great coach, swaying upon its swings, in which the body was borne.
I craned my head this way and that to see; and, as the coach passed beneath me, I saw into its interior, and how there lay there, supported by two men, the figure of another man whose face was covered with a white cloth..