f holding office again?

The conclusion of the commissioners was somewhat more severe than either
of these measures. Their long rambling preamble ended with these decisive
words:

"Therefore the judges, in name of the Lords States-General, condemn the
prisoner to be taken to the Binnenhof, there to be executed with the
sword that death may follow, and they declare all his property
confiscated."

The execution was to take place so soon as the sentence had been read to
the prisoner.

After the 1st of May Barneveld had not appeared before his judges. He had
been examined in all about sixty times.

In the beginning of May his servant became impatient. "You must not be
impatient," said his master. "The time seems much longer because we get
no news now from the outside. But the end will soon come. This delay
cannot last for ever."

Intimation reached him on Saturday the 11th May that the sentence was
ready and would soon be pronounced.

"It is a bitter folk," said Barneveld as he went to bed. "I have nothing
good to expect of them." Next day was occupied in sewing up and
concealing his papers, including a long account of his examination, with
the questions and answers, in his Spanish arm-chair. Next day van der
Meulen said to the servant, "I will bet you a hundred florins that you'll
not be here next Thursday."

The faithful John was delighted, not dreaming of the impending result.

It was Sunday afternoon, 12th May, and about half past five o'clock.
Barneveld sat in his prison chamber, occupied as usual in writing,
reviewing the history of the past, and doing his best to reduce into
something like order the rambling and miscellaneous interrogatories, out
of which his trial had been concocted, while the points dwelt in his
memory, and to draw up a concluding argument in his own defence. Work
which according to any equitable, reasonable, or even decent procedure
should have been entrusted to the first lawyers of the country--preparing
the case upon the law and the facts with the documents before them, with
the power of cross-questioning witnesses and sifting evidence, and
enlightened by constant conferences with the illustrious prisoner
himself--came entirely upon his own shoulders, enfeebled as he was by
age, physical illness, and by the exhaustion of along imprisonment.
Without books, notes of evidence, or even copies of the charges of which
he stood accused, he was obliged to draw up his counter-arguments against