Murmurs of disapprobation ran though the court.
"What a hypocrite!" muttered some, as the jury left the court to consult together about the verdict.
"Do you observe the striking likeness between the prisoner at the bar and his cousin, the second witness against him?" whispered a gentleman in the crowd to a friend near him. "By Jove, 'tis a fearful resemblance. I would not be so like the murderer for worlds. 'Tis the same face."
"Perhaps," said his friend, "they are partners in guilt. I have my doubts. But 'tis unlawful to condemn any man."
"He's a bad fellow by his own account," said the other. "It was he who first led the prisoner to commit the theft. I think one of them deserves death as much as the other."
"Whist, man! Yon handsome rogue is the miser's heir."
"Humph!" said the first speaker. "If I were on the jury--"
"Here they come, there is death in their very looks, I thought as much, he is found guilty."
The judge rose; a death-like stillness pervaded the court during his long and impressive address to the prisoner. The sentence of death was then pronounced, and Anthony Marcus Hurdlestone was ordered for execution on the following Monday.
"This dreadful day is at length over," he said as he flung himself on his pallet of straw in the condemned cell, on the evening of that memorable day. "Thank God it is over, and I know the worst, and nothing now remains to hope or fear. A few brief hours and this weary world will be a dream of the past, and I shall awake from my bed of dust to a new and better existence, beyond the power of temptation--beyond the might of sin. My God, I thank Thee. Thou hast dealt justly with Thy servant. The soul that sinneth, it must die; and grievously have I sinned in seeking to mar Thy glorious image--to cast the life thou gavest me as a worthless boon at Thy feet. I bow my head in the dust and am silent before Thee. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the chaplain of the jail--a venerable Christian who felt a deep interest in the prisoner, and who now sought him to try and awaken him to a full sense of his awful situation.
"My son," he said, laying his hand upon Anthony's shoulder, "how is it with you this night? What is God saying to your soul?"