eing here presently
denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of
Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had
resisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express design, or in
the blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to
whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return
to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this
aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die.

The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the
glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of
light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together,
and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on,
with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things,
and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this
way of light, the prisoner said, "My Lord, I have received my sentence
of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down again.
There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say
to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were
supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of
bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands,
and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from
the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to
be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand
while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up
(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and
pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's
Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that
night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting
forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my
sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I
had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men
in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the
Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took
no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed
in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep