[Footnote 13: See Sanguinary executions of Bacon's followers--without the legal forms of trial, in the Histories of the times.] He was not left long a spectator of this cruel scene; the guard was ordered to present the prisoner again before the court to receive sentence. When Bacon stood once more at the foot of the table, surrounded by his unrelenting enemies, his countenance evinced a total change. When first he stood in the same place, he had not fully realized his situation; he was stupified with overwatching and fatigue. The young are always slow to apprehend the darker shadows in their own prospective, and instinctively cling to the brighter aspect of events and circumstances, until some sudden calamity or unexpected reverse in their own immediate career, opens their eyes to the stern reality. When such a change is brought immediately before the senses, then indeed the dreadful truth speaks direct to the apprehension. Few criminals at the moment of receiving sentence of death, realize more than a horrid and oppressive sense of present calamity--all hope has not yet entirely forsaken them. But could they see upon the spot a fellow criminal undergoing the last penalty of the law, they would at once realize the truth in all its terrors. The sight of his unfortunate followers had thus opened the eyes of the youthful general, to the desperate character of his enemies, and the awful fate which immediately awaited him, but it was not fear which now revived his stupified powers to action. His look was bold and daring, while a preternatural brilliancy shot from his proud eye, as the president of the court, with an assumed calmness, pronounced upon him the sentence of death. As the last fatal word fell from the lips of the stern old knight, the prisoner's countenance was rigid, cold and death-like for an instant, as he struggled to master his rebellious and scornful feelings into such a state of discipline as would enable him to express the little he had to say, with clearness and precision. Although the usual question, "if he had any thing to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against him," was not asked, he stepped boldly up to the end of the board, and notwithstanding the magisterial waive of the president's hand for silence, and a simultaneous order to the officer of the guard to remove him--gave utterance to his feelings in these words, and with a manner powerfully subdued, yet energetic; his voice issuing from between his rigidly set teeth like that of one under the influence of reckless desperation. "If it may so please the president, and gentlemen of the court-martial, I will not tamely and silently submit myself to be butchered in cold blood, without raising my voice and protesting against the jurisdiction of the court--the time--the place--the manner of the trial--the persons who compose the court, and especially him who presides over your deliberations.