bent on them,
several of this band seemed so much disconcerted as to excite among the
spectators strong prepossessions of their guilt. The real murderer had
a countenance incapable of betraying him--a sullen, dark look, which
neither the feast nor wine cup could enliven, and which the peril of
discovery and death could not render dejected.

We have already noticed the posture of the dead body. The face was bare,
as were the breast and arms. The rest of the corpse was shrouded in a
winding sheet of the finest linen, so that, if blood should flow from
any place which was covered, it could not fail to be instantly manifest.

High mass having been performed, followed by a solemn invocation to the
Deity, that He would be pleased to protect the innocent, and make known
the guilty, Eviot, Sir John Ramorny's page, was summoned to undergo the
ordeal. He advanced with an ill assured step. Perhaps he thought his
internal consciousness that Bonthron must have been the assassin might
be sufficient to implicate him in the murder, though he was not directly
accessory to it. He paused before the bier; and his voice faltered,
as he swore by all that was created in seven days and seven nights, by
heaven, by hell, by his part of paradise, and by the God and author
of all, that he was free and sackless of the bloody deed done upon the
corpse before which he stood, and on whose breast he made the sign of
the cross, in evidence of the appeal. No consequences ensued. The body
remained stiff as before, the curdled wounds gave no sign of blood.

The citizens looked on each other with faces of blank disappointment.
They had persuaded themselves of Eviot's guilt, and their suspicions had
been confirmed by his irresolute manner. Their surprise at his escape
was therefore extreme. The other followers of Ramorny took heart, and
advanced to take the oath with a boldness which increased as one by
one they performed the ordeal, and were declared, by the voice of
the judges, free and innocent of every suspicion attaching to them on
account of the death of Oliver Proudfute.

But there was one individual who did not partake that increasing
confidence. The name of "Bonthron--Bonthron!" sounded three times
through the aisles of the church; but he who owned it acknowledged the
call no otherwise than by a sort of shuffling motion with his feet, as
if he had been suddenly affected with a fit of the palsy.

"Speak, dog," whispered Eviot, "or prepare for a d