, although not yet taken,
are known to have been engaged in the murderous attempt at the Winter
Palace. You were greeted there with significant enthusiasm, which was
evidently a testimony on the part of these conspirators to the part you
had played in the affair of Ossinsky."

Godfrey felt that the meshes were closing round him. He remembered that
he had wondered at the time why he had been received with such great
cordiality.

"Now," the president went on, "you are captured in the room of Akim
Soushiloff and Petroff Stepanoff, who were both beyond doubt engaged in
the plot at the Winter Palace, with two other equally guilty
conspirators, and were doubtless deliberating on some fresh atrocity
when interrupted by the agents of the police. You shared in the
desperate resistance they made, which resulted in the death of eight
police officers by pistol shot, or by the explosion of gunpowder, by
which Petroff Stepanoff, who fired it, was also blown to pieces. What
have you to say in your defence?"

"I still say that I am perfectly innocent," Godfrey said. "I knew
nothing of these men being conspirators in any way, and I demand to be
allowed to communicate with my friends, and to obtain the assistance of
an advocate."

"An advocate could say nothing for you," the president said. "You do not
deny any of the charges brought against you, which are, that you were
the associate of these assassins, that you aided Sophia Perovskaia in
effecting the escape of Valerian Ossinsky, that you received the
congratulations of the conspirators at the banquet, and that you were
found in this room in company with four of the men concerned in the
attempt to assassinate the Czar. But the court is willing to be
merciful, and if you will tell all you know with reference to this plot,
and give the names of all the conspirators with whom you have been
concerned, your offence will be dealt with as leniently as possible."

"I repeat that I know nothing, and can therefore disclose nothing, sir,
and I venture to protest against the authority of this court to try and
condemn me, an Englishman."

"No matter what is the nationality of the person," the president said
coldly, "who offends against the laws of this country, he is amenable to
its laws, and his nationality affords him no protection whatever. You
will have time given you to think the matter over before your sentence
is communicated to you. Remove the prisoner."

Godfrey was laid on the st