e sentence of the law which I am about to pass
upon you and which the court awards is that you now be taken to the
place whence you came, and from thence, on the day appointed, to the
place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until you be dead,
dead, dead. And may God have mercy on your soul!"

Captain Jack, standing bolt upright, with his eyes fixed upon the
speaker, calm as he ever had been when awaiting the enemy's broadside,
hearkened without stirring a muscle. But when the judge, after
pronouncing the last words with a lingering fulness and
impressiveness, continued through the heavy silence: "And that, at a
subsequent time, your body, bound in irons, shall be suspended upon a
gibbet erected as near as possible to the scenes of your successive
crimes, and shall there remain as a lasting warning to wrong-doers of
the inevitable ultimate end of such an evil life as yours," a wave of
crimson flew to the prisoner's forehead, upon which every vein swelled
ominously.

He shot a glance of fury at the large flabby countenance of the
righteous arbiter of his doom, whilst his hands closed themselves with
an involuntary gesture of menace. Then the tide of anger ebbed; a
contemptuous smile parted his lips. And, bowing with an air of light
mockery to the court, he turned, erect and easy, to follow his turnkey
out of the hall.

CHAPTER XXXI

IN LANCASTER CASTLE

All that his friendship for the condemned man, all that his love and
pity for his almost distracted wife, could suggest, Sir Adrian Landale
had done in London to try and avert Captain Jack's doom. But it was in
vain. There also old stories of his peculiar tenets and of his
well-known disaffection to the established order of things, had been
raked up against him. Unfavourable comparisons had been drawn between
him and Rupert; surprise and disapproval had been expressed at the
unnatural brother, who was displaying such energy to obtain mercy for
his brother's murderer. Finally an influential personage, whom Sir
Adrian had contrived to interest in the case, in memory of an old
friendship with his father, informed the baronet that his persistence
was viewed with extreme disfavour in the most exalted quarter, and
that His Royal Highness himself had pronounced that Captain Jack was a
damned rascal and richly deserved his fate.

From the beginning, indeed, the suppliant had been without hope.
Though he was resolved to leave no stone unturned, no possibi