ound.

"John Dacre, you are found guilty of high treason to the people. Have
you anything to say?" It was Bagshaw, the President, who spoke, in his
capacity as general of the army.

Dacre made no reply. He was thinking of the treason of his King, and not
of his own. And there in front of him were the people--the people, in
might of numbers, in the majesty of strength, ten thousand to his one.
But as he looked upon them their ten thousand faces were turned on his,
their hearts within their eyes; and Dacre might have noted that in all
of them there was not one but spoke pity--pity, in their silence, for
himself. Then he turned aside from the door, with his back to the prison
wall. "I am ready."

"John Dacre--you have nothing to say?" said the President again. "You
may yet save yourself. Where is the King?" Dacre turned his glance upon
him, slowly.

"I am ready," said he again. He seemed to overlook the President as he
spoke, and he never looked at him again.

"Give the order to make ready!" said Bagshaw, angrily, to the officer in
command, and the slight click of the rifles followed his words.

The narrow courtyard was as still as if deserted, though it seemed you
could almost hear the breathing of the multitude that thronged the
streets. But to die thus, penned in a narrow courtyard, passively,
vainly, shot like a dog. A low murmur began to come from the people,
indeterminate, inarticulate; it came to Dacre's ears like the hum of
distant battle, and perhaps he saw the battle, and the royal standard,
and that last unworthy King for whom this thing was done. Then came
Bagshaw's voice again: "Where is the King?"

"Silence, sir!" thundered Richard Lincoln, and Bagshaw slunk back a pace
or two, like a chidden dog.

"The King is dead," said Dacre, so clearly that all the people in the
street heard him, but no one made a sound. Then he threw back his coat,
as if to bare his breast to the levelled muskets; and as he did so the
withered rose dropped out and fell into his hand. It was Mary Lincoln's
rose that he had thrust there on the day before. And as he looked at it
the false bonds of his faith fell from him like the fetters of a dream,
and he looked upon the multitude and saw that theirs was the right, and
he knew that his life was thrown away; then first he remembered she had
loved him, and he saw what might have been. He saw the poor image of a
king--the King who had deserted his own cause and left him in his
loya