unfaltering through the
crowd, although the severe sweetness of its wonted tones was gone, and
it sounded strange and hollow on the ears that drank it.

"Prisoner at the bar! it has become my duty to announce to you the close
of your mortal career. You have been accused of a daring robbery, and
after an impartial trial a jury of your countrymen and the laws of your
country have decided against you. The recommendation to mercy" (here,
only throughout his speech, Brandon gasped convulsively for breath) "so
humanely added by the jury, shall be forwarded to the supreme power; but
I cannot flatter you with much hope of its success." (The lawyers
looked with some surprise at each other; they had expected a far more
unqualified mandate, to abjure all hope from the jury's recommendation.)
"Prisoner, for the opinions you have expressed, you are now only
answerable to your God; I forbear to arraign them. For the charge you
have made against me, whether true or false, and for the anguish it has
given me, may you find pardon at another tribunal! It remains for me
only--under a reserve too slight, as I have said, to afford you a fair
promise of hope--only to--to" (all eyes were on Brandon; he felt it,
exerted himself for a last effort, and proceeded)--"to pronounce on
you the sharp sentence of the law! It is, that you be taken back to the
prison whence you came, and thence (when the supreme authority shall
appoint) to the place of execution, to be there hanged by the neck till
you are dead; and the Lord God Almighty have mercy on your soul!"

With this address concluded that eventful trial; and while the crowd, in
rushing and noisy tumult, bore towards the door, Brandon, concealing
to the last with a Spartan bravery the anguish which was gnawing at his
entrails, retired from the awful pageant. For the next half-hour he was
locked up with the strange intruder on the proceedings of the court. At
the end of that time the stranger was dismissed; and in about double the
same period Brandon's servant re-admitted him, accompanied by another
man, with a slouched hat and in a carman's frock. The reader need not be
told that the new comer was the friendly Ned, whose testimony was indeed
a valuable corroborative to Dummie's, and whose regard for Clifford,
aided by an appetite for rewards, had induced him to venture to the
town of -----, although he tarried concealed in a safe suburb, until
reassured by a written promise from Brandon of safety