The day of the trial arrived. Silas Sleech stood at the bar. He gazed round the court with an air of confidence, and nodded familiarly to some of his acquaintances. His eye fell for a moment as he encountered the stern glance of Mr. Coppinger, Mr. Kyffin, and other persons who had been brought in as evidence against him. The case was gone into. He was ably defended, and his counsel laid great stress on the non-appearance of the person whose signature he was said to have forged, and whose ruin it appeared he had taken great pains to effect. Silas smiled as he heard these remarks, and attempted to throw an expression of injured innocence into his countenance. The counsel for the Crown replied; but the defence made by the defendant's counsel seemed to have great weight with the jury, when there was a slight movement in the court. A slip of paper was put into the hand of the Crown counsel. He turned round and spoke a few words to a well-dressed young man, who had at that time entered. "The defendant declares," he observed, "that no evidence can be brought forward to prove that he forged the signature of Mr. Stephen Coppinger, asserting that it was the act of another person. Here stands that other person, whose statement you will hear. I produce him as a witness; should you consider him unworthy of belief, you will acquit the prisoner; if not, I am ready to prove that no other person than Silas Sleech, the prisoner at the bar, could have committed the forgery." As Silas caught sight of the countenance of the young man, he gazed at him as at one risen from the dead, and a sudden tremor seized his frame. "He knows I did not do it; he knows I did not," he gasped out; but Harry Tryon took no notice of him. Harry briefly and clearly gave an account of the circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted. The jury were perfectly satisfied of the guilt of the prisoner. "But he is a convicted felon, he cannot be brought as evidence against me. He was one of the mutineers of the Nore. He ought to have been hung with his companion Parker." "The prisoner is mistaken, my lord," said Mr. Kyffin; "the young gentleman is as free as any one in this court. He is my ward, and I am sure that his name will not be found among the mutineers of the Nore."