Around five sides of the hexagon were seats, tier above tier, appropriated to the public who wish to see as well as hear.  The phonograph reported every word uttered to hundreds of distant offices.  Against the sixth side were placed the seats of the seven judges; in front, at an equal elevation, the chair of the prisoner, the seats of the advocates on right and left, and the place from which each witness must deliver his testimony in full view and within easy hearing both of the bench, the bar, and the audience.  Davilo sat in his chair unguarded, but in an attitude strangely constrained and motionless.  Only his bright eyes moved freely, and his head turned a little from side to side.  He recognised us instantly, and his look expressed no trace of fear.

“The quarry” whispered Esmo, observing my perplexity.

“It paralyses the nerves of motion, leaving those of sensation active; and is administered to a prisoner on the instant of his arrest, so as to keep him absolutely helpless till his sentence is executed, or till on his acquittal an antidote is administered.”

The counsel for the prosecution stated in the briefest possible words the story of Astona, from the moment when she left my house to that at which she was found dead, and the method of her death; related Davilo’s words, and then proceeded to call his witnesses.  Of course the one vital question was whether by possibility Davilo, who had never left my premises since the words were uttered, could have brought about a death, evidently accidental in its immediate cause, at a distance of many miles.  His words were attested by one whom I recognised as an officer of Endo Zampta, and I was called to confirm or contradict them.  The presiding judge, as I took my place, read a brief telling terrible menace, expounding the legal penalties of perjury.

“You will speak the truth,” he said, “or you know the consequences.”

As he spoke, he encountered Esmo’s eyes, and quailed under the gaze, sinking back into his seat motionless as the bird under the alleged fascination of the serpent.  I admitted that the words in question had been addressed to me; and I proved that Davilo had been busily engaged with me from that moment until an hour later than that of the fatal accident.  There being thus no dispute as to the facts, a keen contest of argument proceeded between the advocates on either side.  The defenders of the prisoner ridiculed with an affectation of scientific contempt—­none the less effective because the chief pleader was himself an experienced member of our Order—­the idea that the actions or fate of a person at a distance could be affected by the mere will of another; and related, as absurd and incredible traditions of old to this purport, some anecdotes which had been communicated to me as among the best attested and most striking examples of the historical exercise of the mystic powers.  The able and bigoted sceptics, who prosecuted