re brush of iron-gray hair that stood
erect across the top of his corded forehead, and a crisp, clear
utterance, like the crackle of a horse's hoofs on the frost.

Jason was charged with an attempt to take the life of Michael
Sunlocks, first President of the second Republic. He did not plead
and had no defence, and the witnesses against him spoke only in
answer to the leading questions of the judges.

The first of the witnesses was Greeba herself, and her evidence,
given in English, was required to be interpreted. All her brave
strength was now gone. She trembled visibly. Her eyes were down, her
head was bent, her face was half-hidden by the hood of a cloak she
wore, and her tones were barely audible. She had little to say. The
prisoner had forced his way into Government House, and there, to her
own face, had threatened to take the life of her husband. In plain
words he had done so, and then made show of going in pursuit of her
husband that he might carry out his design.

"Wait," said the Bishop, "your husband was not present?"

"No," said Greeba.

"There was, therefore, no direct violence?"

"None."

"And the whole sum of the prisoner's offence, so far as you know of
it, lies in the use of the words that you have repeated?"

"Yes."

Then, turning to the spokesman of the Court, the old Bishop said--

"There has been no overt act. This is not an attempt, but a threat
to take life. And this is not a crime by the law of this, or any
other Christian country."

"Your pardon, my lord," said the little man, in his crisp tones. "I
will show that the prisoner is guilty of the essential part of murder
itself. Murder, my lord," he added, "is not merely to compass the
destruction of a life, for there is homicide, by misadventure, there
is justifiable homicide, and there are the rights, long recognized by
Icelandic law, of the avengers of blood. Murder is to kill in secrecy
and after long-harbored malice, and now my lord, I shall show that
the prisoner has lain in wait to slay the President of the Republic."

At that Greeba stood down, and other witnesses followed her. Nearly
everyone had been summoned with whom Jason had exchanged words since
he landed eight days before. There was the lean student who had told
him of the drill at the Latin school, the little tailor who had
explained the work at the jail, the stuttering doorkeeper at the
senate-house, and one of the masons at the fort. Much was made of the
fainting i