Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/26

26 est of all was the knowledge that he had failed his father. He wondered if, wherever Cabot was, he knew of it yet.

In those dark hours there were only two gleams of light: Brooke's visits, and the friendship of one of the reporters.

Tom Benchley was a man of sixty, bald, red-faced, and jovial. He alone of the journalists questioned Dane civilly. He seemed to remember that a man is innocent until proved guilty, something the rest of the world was forgetting.

He was Dane's only friend at the trial, when it was finally brought three weeks after his capture. But his orphan opinions could not sway The Hundred, who sat in grim concourse within the Hall of Justice. Two hours of deliberation sufficed to bring in a verdict of guilty.

Loren Bayard minced out upon the dais, then, and pointed a long finger at the prisoner.

"You have been found guilty of assault upon a Leader, treason against the State, and the murder of Jeffrey Anson," he recited. "Have you anything to say before sentence is passed?"

Dane looked up.

"Yes! That for unadulterated beastiality, the Spanish Inquisition had nothing upon a modern court trial as we've seen it here."

The Hundred muttered angrily, and a stir riffled the taut surface of the courtroom audience. When he said nothing more, Bayard's thin, biting tones lifted again:

"Then I sentence you to death by electrocution, to take place at dawn—tomorrow!"

The Hundred slowly sank back. Dane turned away. The bailiff led him into the hall at the rear of the chamber and photographers surged about, clamoring for a statement and snapping flashlight bulbs in Dane's face. Tom Benchley was there, and somehow the cigar-chewing old reporter worked in beside him and accompanied Dane and the guards down the halls.

The cell-block was upstairs. That way the whole group proceeded. They came to the jail floor and stopped before Dane's cell. The newsmen were shouting now, realizing their last chance for a story from the rebel was nearly over.

It was then that Tom Benchley raised his hands aloft.

"Easy, boys!" he shouted. "You want something to print, and here it is. Say for Cabot that he'll never burn in the chair!"

Silence swept over the noisy reporters and the frowning guards. Dane blinked, puzzled by Benchley's words.

"What are you driving at?" one of the journalists demanded.

"I mean that Cabot's going to escape." Tom Benchley nodded soberly at the crowd.

One of the guards laughed.

"Yeah? When?"

Benchley dropped his big hands into his coat pockets.

"Why, off hand," he frowned, "I'd say right about now!" Then his big hands came out of his pockets and he was holding a hand grenade in each. One powerful arm knocked Dane behind him. "Stand right where you are, or I'll blow the whole bunch of us to Kingdom Come!" he shouted. "Cabot, there's a ship on the roof. Get moving!"

ANE was too astonished to make his feet move. One of the guards started for the reporter.

"You fool, they'll burn you for this!" he roared. "Give me those grenades!"

"I'll give them to you in the belly if you come any farther," warned the red