Tom’s compassion for the prisoner, and admiration of him as the daring rescuer of a drowning boy, experienced a most damaging shock.

“The thing was proven upon him?” he asked.

“Most clearly, sire.”

Tom sighed, and said—­

“Take him away—­he hath earned his death.  ’Tis a pity, for he was a brave heart—­na—­na, I mean he hath the look of it!”

The prisoner clasped his hands together with sudden energy, and wrung them despairingly, at the same time appealing imploringly to the ‘King’ in broken and terrified phrases—­

“O my lord the King, an’ thou canst pity the lost, have pity upon me!  I am innocent—­neither hath that wherewith I am charged been more than but lamely proved—­yet I speak not of that; the judgment is gone forth against me and may not suffer alteration; yet in mine extremity I beg a boon, for my doom is more than I can bear.  A grace, a grace, my lord the King! in thy royal compassion grant my prayer—­give commandment that I be hanged!”

Tom was amazed.  This was not the outcome he had looked for.

“Odds my life, a strange boon!  Was it not the fate intended thee?”

“O good my liege, not so!  It is ordered that I be boiled alive!”

The hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from his chair.  As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out—­

“Have thy wish, poor soul! an’ thou had poisoned a hundred men thou shouldst not suffer so miserable a death.”

The prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into passionate expressions of gratitude—­ending with—­

“If ever thou shouldst know misfortune—­which God forefend!—­may thy goodness to me this day be remembered and requited!”

Tom turned to the Earl of Hertford, and said—­

“My lord, is it believable that there was warrant for this man’s ferocious doom?”

“It is the law, your Grace—­for poisoners.  In Germany coiners be boiled to death in oil—­not cast in of a sudden, but by a rope let down into the oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the legs, then—­”

“O prithee no more, my lord, I cannot bear it!” cried Tom, covering his eyes with his hands to shut out the picture.  “I beseech your good lordship that order be taken to change this law—­oh, let no more poor creatures be visited with its tortures.”

The Earl’s face showed profound gratification, for he was a man of merciful and generous impulses—­a thing not very common with his class in that fierce age.  He said—­

“These your Grace’s noble words have sealed its doom.  History will remember it to the honour of your royal house.”

The under-sheriff was about to remove his prisoner; Tom gave him a sign to wait; then he said—­

“Good sir, I would look into this matter further.  The man has said his deed was but lamely proved.  Tell me what thou knowest.”