No more miserable place could be found outside the jail, and it could only be surpassed in horror by one within.  It might have been, and probably was, an anteroom to hell, but of that I say nothing.  I leave my description, for I can do no more justice to it.  The only cheerful thing about it was Dr. Bernard himself.  He was totally unconcerned with the danger of his situation, and regarded himself as a hero of the first order.  Murder, hanging, guillotine—­all seemed to be the everyday chances of life, and to him there was nothing sweeter or more desirable, if you might judge by his demeanour.

I thought it well to mention the fact that, if the jury found him guilty, Lord Campbell would certainly sentence him to death.  He exhibited no emotion whatever, but shrugging his shoulders after the manner of a Frenchman who differed from you in opinion, said,—­

“Well, if I am hanged, I must be hanged, that is all.”

With a man like him it was impossible to argue or ask for explanations.  He seemed to be possessed with the one idea that to remedy all the grievances of the State it was merely necessary to blow up the Emperor with his horses and carriage, and coolly informed us, without the least reserve, that the bombs manufactured with this political object had been sent over to Paris from England concealed in firkins of butter.  I can find no words in which to express my feelings.

So ended our first consultation.  The “merits” of the case were gone; there was no defence.  But whatever might be our opinion on Dr. Bernard’s state of mind, we could not abandon him to his fate.  We were retained to defend him, and defend him we must, even in spite of himself, if we could do so consistently with our professional honour and duty.

Accordingly we had another consultation, and as I have said there was one other room in England more ghastly than that where we held our first interview, so now I reluctantly introduce you to it.

If a man about to be tried for his life could look on this apartment and its horrors unmoved, he would certainly be a fit subject for the attentions of the hangman, and deserving of no human sympathy.  It was enough to shake the nerves of the hangman himself.

We were in an apartment on the north-east side of the quadrangular building, where the sunshine never entered.  Even daylight never came, but only a feeble, sickening twilight, precursor of the grave itself.  It was not merely the gloom that intensified the horrors of the situation, or the ghastly traditions of the place, or the impending fate of our callous client; but there was a tier of shelves occupying the side of the apartment, on which were placed in dismal prominence the plaster-of-Paris busts of all the malefactors who had been hanged in Newgate for some hundred years.

No man can look attractive after having been hanged, and the indentation of the hangman’s rope on every one of their necks, with the mark of the knot under the ear, gave such an impression of all that can be conceived of devilish horror as would baffle the conceptions of the most morbid genius.