His lordship smiled.  “It will not be necessary.  For, mark me, I do not intend to waste more time on you.  Answer me only this:  When Master Pitt, as you pretend, came to summon you, did you know that he had been, as you have heard him confess, of Monmouth’s following?”

“I did, My lord.”

“You did!  Ha!” His lordship looked at the cringing jury and uttered a short, stabbing laugh.  “Yet in spite of that you went with him?”

“To succour a wounded man, as was my sacred duty.”

“Thy sacred duty, sayest thou?” Fury blazed out of him again.  “Good God!  What a generation of vipers do we live in!  Thy sacred duty, rogue, is to thy King and to God.  But let it pass.  Did he tell you whom it was that you were desired to succour?”

“Lord Gildoy — yes.”

“And you knew that Lord Gildoy had been wounded in the battle, and on what side he fought?”

“I knew.”

“And yet, being, as you would have us believe, a true and loyal subject of our Lord the King, you went to succour him?”

Peter Blood lost patience for a moment.  “My business, my lord, was with his wounds, not with his politics.”

A murmur from the galleries and even from the jury approved him.  It served only to drive his terrible judge into a deeper fury.

“Jesus God!  Was there ever such an impudent villain in the world as thou?” He swung, white-faced, to the jury.  “I hope, gentlemen of the jury, you take notice of the horrible carriage of this traitor rogue, and withal you cannot but observe the spirit of this sort of people, what a villainous and devilish one it is.  Out of his own mouth he has said enough to hang him a dozen times.  Yet is there more.  Answer me this, sir:  When you cozened Captain Hobart with your lies concerning the station of this other traitor Pitt, what was your business then?”

“To save him from being hanged without trial, as was threatened.”

“What concern was it of yours whether or how the wretch was hanged?”

“Justice is the concern of every loyal subject, for an injustice committed by one who holds the King’s commission is in some sense a dishonour to the King’s majesty.”

It was a shrewd, sharp thrust aimed at the jury, and it reveals, I think, the alertness of the man’s mind, his self-possession ever steadiest in moments of dire peril.  With any other jury it must have made the impression that he hoped to make.  It may even have made its impression upon these poor pusillanimous sheep.  But the dread judge was there to efface it.

He gasped aloud, then flung himself violently forward.

“Lord of Heaven!” he stormed.  “Was there ever such a canting, impudent rascal?  But I have done with you.  I see thee, villain, I see thee already with a halter round thy neck.”

Having spoken so, gloatingly, evilly, he sank back again, and composed himself.  It was as if a curtain fell.  All emotion passed again from his pale face.  Back to invest it again came that gentle melancholy.  Speaking after a moment’s pause, his voice was soft, almost tender, yet every word of it carried sharply through that hushed court.