The Shadow of a Crime Part 56

"Brother Hide, is the court to be troubled longer with these idle disputations?"

"I ask for counsel," said Ralph.

"This," replied Justice Hide, "is not a matter in which counsel can be a.s.signed. If your crime be treason, it cannot be justified; if it be justifiable, it is not treason. The law provides that _we_ shall be your counsel, and, as such, I advise that you do not ask exemption under the Act of Oblivion, for that is equal to a confession." "I do not confess," said Ralph.

"You must plead Guilty or Not Guilty. There is no third course. Are you Guilty or Not Guilty?"

There was a stillness like that of the chamber of death in the court as this was spoken.

Ralph paused, lifted his head, and looked calmly about him. Every eye was fixed on his face. That face was as firm as a rock. Two eyes near the door were gleaming with the light of fiendish triumph. Ralph returned his gaze to the judges. Still the silence was unbroken. It seemed to hang in the air.

"Guilty or Not Guilty?"

There was no reply.

"Does the prisoner refuse to plead?" asked Justice Hide. Still there was no reply. Not a whisper in the court; not the shuffle of a foot.

The judge's voice fell slowly on the ear,--

"Ralph Ray, we would not have you deceive yourself. If you do not plead, it will be the same with you as if you had confessed."

"Am I at liberty to stand mute?"

"a.s.suredly not," Justice Millet burst out, pulling his robes about him.

"Your pardon, brother; it is the law that the prisoner may stand mute if he choose."

Then turning to Ralph,--

"But why?"

"To save from forfeiture my lands, sheep, goods, and chattels, and those of my mother and brother, falsely stated to be mine."

Justice Millet gave an eager glance at Justice Hide.

"It is the law," said the latter, apparently replying to an unuttered question. "The estate of an offender cannot be seized to the King's use before conviction. My Lord c.o.ke is very clear on that point. It is the law; we must yield to it."

"G.o.d forefend else!" replied Justice Millet in his meekest tone.

"Ralph Ray," continued the judge, "let us be sure that you know what you do. If you stand mute a terrible punishment awaits you."

Justice Millet interposed,--

"I repeat that the prisoner _must_ plead. In the ancient law of _peine forte et dure_ an exception is expressly made of all cases of regicide."

"The indictment does not specify regicide as the prisoner's treason."

Justice Millet hid his discomfiture in an ostentatious perusal of a copy of the indictment.

"But do not deceive yourself," continued the judge, turning again towards the prisoner. "Do you know the penalty of standing mute? Do you know that to save your estates to your family by refusing to plead, you must suffer a terrible death,--a death without judgment, a death too shocking perhaps for so much as bare contemplation? Do you know this?"

The dense throng in the court seemed not to breathe at that awful moment. Every one waited for the reply. It came slowly and deliberately,--

"I know it."

The paper dropped from the judge's hand, and fluttered to the floor.

In the court there was a half-uttered murmur of amazement. A man stood there to surrender his life, with all that was near and dear to it.

Not dogged, trapped, made desperate by fate, but cheerfully and of his own free will.

Wonder and awe fell on that firmament of faces. Brave fellows there found the heart swell and the pulse beat quick as they saw that men-- plain, rude men, Englishmen, kinsmen--might still do n.o.bly. Cowards shrank closer together.

And, in the midst of all, the man who stood to die wore the serenest look to be seen there. Not an eye but was upturned to his placid face.

The judge's voice broke the silence,--

"And was it with this knowledge and this view that you surrendered?"

Ralph folded his arms across his breast and bowed.

The silence could be borne no longer. The murmurs of the spectators broke into a wild tumult of cheers, like the tossing of many waters; like the roar and lash of mighty winds that rise and swell, then ebb and surge again.

The usher of the court had not yet suppressed the applause, when it was observed that a disturbance of another kind had arisen near the door. A young woman with a baby in her arms was crushing her way in past the javelin man stationed there, and was craning her neck to catch sight of the prisoner above the dense throng that occupied every inch of the floor.

"Let me have but a glance at him--one glance--for the dear G.o.d's sake let me but see him--only once--only for a moment."

The judge called for silence, and the officer was hurrying the woman away when Ralph turned his face full towards the door.

"I see him now," said the woman. "He's not my husband. No," she added, "but I've seen him before somewhere."

"Where, my good woman? Where have you seen him before the day?"

This was whispered in her ear by a man who had struggled his way to her side.

"Does he come from beyond Gaskarth?" she asked.

"Why, why?"

"This commotion ill befits the gravity of a trial of such grave concernment," said one of the judges in an austere tone.

In another moment the woman and her eager interlocutor had left the court together.

There was then a brief consultation between the occupants of the bench.

"The pardon is binding," said one; "if it were otherwise it were the hardest case that could be for half the people of England."

"Yet the King came back without conditions," replied the other.

There was a general bustle in the court. The crier proclaimed silence.