Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/108

 he requested the jailor to reconduct him to the prison. It lasted a good while before the dread arbiters of life and death could recover from their astonishment, and debate on Peter's doom, which they unanimously agreed to mitigate as much as possible.

According to the rigour of the law he should have been burnt alive, but he and the robber who had been convicted of sacrilege, were sentenced to be beheaded first, and then burnt. The rest of the gang were ordered to close confinement for further examination.

When father Peter with his fellow sufferer was called to the bar, in order to hear his sentence pronounced, he behaved with the same firmness of mind as on his trial, and comforted him who had betrayed him.

Having heard his sentence pronounced with the greatest equanimity, he thanked his judges for their clemency, and left the court,