"What’s that!" roared Jeffreys, glaring at him fiercely. "Have my senses left me? Ye would speak for yonder heap of infamy! Who are ye, fellow?"
"I am Samuel Dassell, my lord, deputy searcher of the port of Lyme."
"Ah, and what would ye say?" asked Jeffreys, with a heavy frown.
"Why, this, my lord," said Dassell with great haste, "that I have known the prisoner, Michael Fane, and his father many years, and have ever found them true and loyal gentlemen. I never heard a whisper against either of them, and if----"
"Stop!" roared the judge, bringing a fist down on the desk. "What fresh infamy is this, that you should dare to speak in favour of yon villain? Think ye it not a burning shame that you, who serve the King and eat his very bread, should raise your voice in favour of his enemies? Ah! Samuel Dassell, you are surely in the wrong place; ye should be either in the dock or else in prison. Yea, verily, methinks I see you dancing at a rope-end even now. Deputy searcher, quotha! Go ye and search for the loyalty ye lack! Away with ye! I say, before my zeal doth tempt me to lay hands upon you. Go!"
And with a long sad look at me, poor Dassell left the court-house.
Then Jeffreys swept the hall with one swift, flashing glance, and, turning to the jury, said:
"Gentlemen, ye have surely heard enough, aye, and far more than that, concerning yonder giant of iniquity. Have ye, then, your verdict ready?"
"We have, your lordship," said the foreman, rising with eager readiness.
"Ah, by my life, and I should think so," roared Jeffreys. "Guilty, indeed! guilty as any man who ever faced a judge. Listen, Michael Fane! Ye have tried lying, brazen impudence, and every other wile to save your neck, but all have failed you. One more question: Where is the box in which ’tis said these documents were stored?"
"How should I know, seeing they were stolen from us?" I answered warily, not meaning to enlighten him on that point. "Ask those who stole them."
"Ah! so we flout and snarl unto the end, eh? Well, well, it matters not, for verily that mocking tongue of yours will soon be put to silence. Listen, Michael Fane! Ye die, and would that I only had your wicked father here, that I might send him to his death along with you. He hath sorely cheated me by dying of his own accord. Ye die, I say, and as ye hail from Lyme--that sink of rank rebellion--there ye hang, and that as near as may be to the spot where Monmouth landed. If ye be not quartered also, ’twill be marvellous. I have already twelve more knaves to hang at Lyme--some who came ashore there with their pretty Duke, and some who waited for his coming. Ye make thirteen--a good round baker’s dozen! (Make a note of that, clerk--Michael Fane to hang at Lyme with others on the twelfth of this month; and mark it that he dies the last of them.) Oh, Michael Fane, thou lusty scoundrel, doth not even a heart so base as yours feel some small gratitude that I have it in my power to end a life so wicked in its early days? Consider what ye would have grown to, and use what little time remains to you on earth in thinking deeply on your awful sins. Away with ye!"