"What! then you make confession, man?" said the King. "This is the eighth or ninth time since we left Berwick that robbery has been committed upon persons attending our court, and, now we have got you, we will make an example, depend upon it." "I wished but to see what the pouch contained, your majesty," exclaimed Slingsby, in a dolorous tone. "Just like all other robbers and plunderers," answered James; "they all want to see what the purses they take contain, and the more the better." "But, but," cried the man, "it was only curiosity." "Hout tout!" exclaimed James, "such curiosity as that must be stopped with a rope," (or, as the King expressed it, with a "wuudie,") "and being the sovereign judge, to whom all other judges in this realm are merely subservient, or assistant, having tried the case ourselves, and finding this man taken in the act, and not making denial of his guilt, we shall proceed to pass sentence upon him according to law, ordering him to be taken back to prison, and thence, to-morrow morning, at six of the clock, to the place of public execution, there to be hanged by the neck until he be dead. Let a warrant be prepared, directed to our Recorder of the town of Newark, for due execution of our sentence." Every person in the room looked almost as much aghast as the unhappy prisoner; for such a gross and unheard-of violation of the laws of England seemed to every one more dangerous than if a thousand cut-purses had escaped. "But, sire----" exclaimed Cecil, stepping forward. "Not a word, Sir Robert--not a word," cried the King. "We will have no pleading for him. He is taken in the fact, confesses his crime, and it is but right and befitting to make our English subjects know that we hold the sword of Justice with a firm hand, and will not fail to strike at all offenders against the law. Take the man away--let the warrant be made out and executed without fail. As we are a crowned king, we will not bate a tittle of our sentence." The courtiers looked in each other's faces, and the unhappy Slingsby was dragged away, endeavouring to stammer forth some appeal to the King's mercy and to the laws of the land. But no one attended to him; and so great was the popular excitement in favour of a new monarch, that, although such an act had not been committed since the darkest period of British history, no one ventured to oppose it, and the warrant was made out according to the King's command. James himself seemed not to entertain the slightest doubt or hesitation in regard to his own proceedings, nor indeed any sorrow or compunction for the fate of the unhappy man whom he had just doomed to death. "Well, now," he cried, addressing Lakyn, "the cut-purse being disposed of, let us see the pouch, man."