ad. Judge Harbottle actually pleaded! He pleaded
"Not Guilty." A jury were sworn. The trial proceeded. Judge Harbottle
was bewildered. This could not be real. He must be either mad, or
_going_ mad, he thought.

One thing could not fail to strike even him. This Chief-Justice Twofold,
who was knocking him about at every turn with sneer and gibe, and
roaring him down with his tremendous voice, was a dilated effigy of
himself; an image of Mr. Justice Harbottle, at least double his size,
and with all his fierce colouring, and his ferocity of eye and visage,
enhanced awfully.

Nothing the prisoner could argue, cite, or state, was permitted to
retard for a moment the march of the case towards its catastrophe.

The chief-justice seemed to feel his power over the jury, and to exult
and riot in the display of it. He glared at them, he nodded to them; he
seemed to have established an understanding with them. The lights were
faint in that part of the court. The jurors were mere shadows, sitting
in rows; the prisoner could see a dozen pair of white eyes shining,
coldly, out of the darkness; and whenever the judge in his charge, which
was contemptuously brief, nodded and grinned and gibed, the prisoner
could see, in the obscurity, by the dip of all these rows of eyes
together, that the jury nodded in acquiescence.

And now the charge was over, the huge chief-justice leaned back panting
and gloating on the prisoner. Every one in the court turned about, and
gazed with steadfast hatred on the man in the dock. From the jury-box
where the twelve sworn brethren were whispering together, a sound in the
general stillness like a prolonged "hiss-s-s!" was heard; and then, in
answer to the challenge of the officer, "How say you, gentlemen of the
jury, guilty or not guilty?" came in a melancholy voice the finding,
"Guilty."

The place seemed to the eyes of the prisoner to grow gradually darker
and darker, till he could discern nothing distinctly but the lumen of
the eyes that were turned upon him from every bench and side and corner
and gallery of the building. The prisoner doubtless thought that he had
quite enough to say, and conclusive, why sentence of death should not be
pronounced upon him; but the lord chief-justice puffed it contemptuously
away, like so much smoke, and proceeded to pass sentence of death upon
the prisoner, having named the tenth of the ensuing month for his
execution.

Before he had recovered the stun of this omino