ur good surgeon's suggestion?" asked
Bradford, restraining the smile tempting the corners of his mouth. "It
approves itself to me as a fair sentence. Will those who are so minded
raise their right hands?"

The larger number of right hands rose in the air, and the sentence was
pronounced that so soon as the doctor assured the authorities that the
wounded men would take no harm from the exposure, the duelists, bound
neck and heels, should be laid at the meeting of the four roads, there
to remain four-and-twenty hours without food or water, and until that
time each was to remain locked in a separate chamber.

"And now John Billington," continued Bradford sternly, as the younger
men were removed, "how hast thou to defend thyself from the charge of
blood guiltiness in stirring up strife between these two?"

"Nay, your worship, it was their own quarrel," replied Billington
hardily. "I did but chance to pass and saw them at it, and so tarried a
moment to see fair play."

"And to hound them on at each other, as if it were a bull-baiting for
thine own amusement," interposed Standish in a contemptuous tone. "Nay,
lie not about it, man! I heard thee, and saw thee!"

"Surely, Billington," resumed the governor, "thou hast not so soon
forgotten how thou wast convened before us some weeks since, charged
with insolence and disobedience to our captain, and with seditious
speech anent the government. We did then speak of some such punishment
as this for thee, but thy outcry of penitence and promise of amendment,
coupled with the shame of chastising thee in sight of thine own wife and
sons, was so great that we forgave thee, the more that Captain Standish
passed over the affront to himself; but now we see that the penitence
was but feigned, and the amendment a thing of naught, and much I fear
me, John Billington, that an' thou amend not thy ways, harsher
discipline than we would willingly inflict will be thy portion in time
to come."

The governor spoke with more than usual solemnity fixing upon the
offender a gaze severe yet pitiful and reluctant, as one who foresees
for another a fate deserved indeed, and yet too terrible to contemplate.
Perhaps before that astute and reflective mind there rose a vision of
the gallows nine years later to be erected by his own order, whereon
John Billington, deliberate murderer of John Newcomen, should expiate
his crime and open the gloomy record of capital punishment in New
England.

At the pre