ith friendly dignity, "I pray you,
sir, conduct my defence truly; I do not understand this matter, and
will reward your labour. If the business were the ordering of a battle,
I should know better what I was about."

"Say on, then," replied the procurator, gaping: "how am I to defend
you?"

"In God's name!" cried Tausdorf angrily, "how should I, who have been
devoted to arms from my youth, teach you what you are to say for me
before the tribunal? The little Latin which I learnt at Gitschin is of
no use here. But you are a studied man, well informed in the law, and
must best know what will conduce to my advantage."

"It will all be of no use," muttered the procurator; "but relate the
tale to me circumstantially, that I may thoroughly comprehend it."

Again poor Tausdorf undertook the sad labour of narrating the tale of
blood. The procurator listened to him, gaping, and then briefly
repeated what he had heard to the tribunal, concluding with, "You have
now heard Tausdorf's statement of the affair, gentlemen, and I submit
it to your decision."

"Is that your whole defence?" cried the knight indignantly, while this
statement was being protocolled. "May our Saviour one day speak for
your sins before the judgment-seat of God, as you have spoken for me in
this hour before the tribunal of man!"

"Have you any thing else to advance?" said the judge to the accused and
his defender; and as they were silent, he rang the bell, saying, "The
audit is closed.--Let the knight be conveyed back again to the
Hildebrand," he added to the serjeant, who then entered.

"Gentlemen," said Tausdorf, with manly firmness, "I do not believe that
you have a right to pronounce judgment on me; but if you do hold
yourselves so empowered, I warn you honestly, when you give your votes,
to keep your conscience and your dying hour before your eyes. It is an
easy thing for you to slay me, for I am in your power; but innocent
blood cries with a thousand voices to Heaven, and God is just."

He went away with his guard, followed by his model of a defender, and
the judges laid their heads together in anxious whisperings.

* * * * *

In the meantime the day had fully broken, and a bright July sun shone
upon the overwatched faces of the council, who were still collected in
the Sessions'-chamber, and had reclined themselves against the windows
to prevent their going to sleep. The iron old Erasmus alone sat at the
green