-men, weaponless, their
hands pinioned behind them--Blake's arm was healed by now--stood Mr.
Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.

Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
very fearful--having through his connection with the Cause every reason
so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any
plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.

Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged
gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were
of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark
eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper
lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was
thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth
adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great
pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great
Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.

The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.

"We are informed, sir, of your antecedents," he staggered Blake by
answering. "We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready
to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
battered fortunes."

Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. "I'm forejudged, it, seems," he made
answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
judges. "May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?"

"You shall receive impartial justice at our hands," put in Phelips,
whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. "Depend on that. Not only
shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by
him. Meanwhile, sirs"--and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid--"meanwhile, are we to
understand t