Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/244

and His Lordship the Judge, surpass imagination. Some quoted the Latin and the Greek, while others of less learning voiced their opinions in the vulgar tongue, so that all in all there was enough disputation to fuddle the wits of a mere layman by the time they gave the case to the jury.

Then the jury, weighing all that had been said, put together its twelve heads, while such stillness prevailed in the court that a man could hear his neighbor's breathing. It seemed to those whose lives were at stake that the deliberations took as many hours as in reality they took minutes. There are times when every grain of sand in the glass seems to loiter in falling and to drift through the air like thistledown, as if unwilling to come to rest with its fellows below. Yet the sand is falling as fast as ever, though a man whose life is weighing in the balance can scarcely believe it; so at last the jury made an end of its work, which after all had taken little. enough time in consideration of the matter they must decide.

"You have reached with due and faithful care a verdict in this matter?" quoth His Lordship.

"We have, my lord."

"You will then declare your verdict to the Court."

"Of these fourteen prisoners at the bar of justice, my lord, we find one and all guilty of the felonies and piracies that are charged against them, save only one man." In the deathly silence that fell upon the room the name sounded forth like the stroke of a bell. "We acquit, my lord, Philip Marsham."

There and then Philip Marsham parted company with the men of the Rose of Devon. His hands shook