Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/172

152 “So you want them to,” said Tom, bluntly.

“I—want them to?” cried Bassett, blushing.

Tom had no heart to push the punishment. “No, no,” said he, with a wan smile, “I was only joking. Good time for a joke, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Look at those turnkeys; they thought I hadn’t a laugh left in me. How goes the time? Six already? I say, do you think that Serjeant Culliford would come down and let me shake his hand? I would like to do that—especially before I know.”

“Culliford! He’ll have nothing to do with the petition, you know.”

“Hang the petition! I want to thank him for his speech.”

Bassett said he would see. He was away but a minute, and he came back alone.

“Culliford is rather tired,” said he. “He asks you to excuse him, but he sincerely wishes you good luck.”

Tom nodded. He could not speak.

So the hero of that noble, touching, magnificent speech drew the line at shaking him by the hand!

It was the worst thing yet; nothing else compared with it; but it had this merit, that it anticipated the great sting to come, and made the poor wretch smart so terribly in semi-private that his capacity for present anguish was exhausted before his reappearance in the dock. And, besides, it finally prepared him for the worst; for if his very advocate found him guilty in his heart, and for all his beautiful words, what other verdict could he look for from the jury?

Nevertheless, they deliberated until 6.50. Then a sudden hush upstairs emphasised the returning tramp of four-and-twenty feet. And, in a hushed and twilit court,