to sum up the evidence. As the widow of the deceased had so
strangely, yet effectually deprived them of her evidence, he said,
he thought some slight regard ought to be paid to Don Luis Garcia's
words; but even without doing so, the circumstantial evidence, though
contradictory and complicated, was enough in his opinion to convict
the prisoner; but he referred to his associates and to the peers
then present, to pronounce sentence. His task was but to sum up the
evidence, which he trusted he had done distinctly; his opinion was
that of but one individual; there were at least fifty or sixty voices,
to confirm or to oppose it.

Deep and sustained as had been the interest throughout the trial, it
was never more intense than during the awful pause which heralded the
prisoner's doom. It was spoken at length; the majority alike of the
nobles and of the Santa Hermandad, believed and pronounced him guilty,
and sentence of death was accordingly passed; but the Duke of Murcia
then stepped forward, and urged the following, not only in the name of
his brother peers, but in the name of his native sovereign, Isabella;
that in consideration of the complicated and contradictory evidence,
of the prisoner's previous high character, and of his strongly
protested innocence, a respite of one month should be granted between
sentence and execution, to permit prayers to be offered up throughout
Spain for the discovery of the real murderer, or at least allow time
for some proof of innocence to appear; during which time the prisoner
should be removed from the hateful dungeon he had till that morning
occupied, and confined under strict ward, in one of the turrets of the
castle; and that, if at the end of the granted month affairs remained
as they were then, that no proof of innocence appeared, a scaffold was
to be erected in the Calle Soledad, on the exact spot where the murder
was committed; there the prisoner, publicly degraded from the honors
and privileges of chivalry, his sword broken before him, his spurs
ignominiously struck from his heels, would then receive the award
of the law, death from hanging, the usual fate of the vilest and
commonest malefactors.

Ferdinand and the Sub-Prior regarded him attentively while this
sentence was pronounced, but not a muscle in his countenance moved;
what it expressed it would have been difficult to define; but it
seemed as if his thoughts were on other than himself. The King
courteously thanked the ass