The judge has done, and now the jury turned from the box "to consider their verdict." An hour and twenty minutes they remained absent; then their returning tread was heard. The prisoners turned their eyes upwards; Maguire looked towards them, half hopefully half appealingly; from Allen's glance nothing but defiance could be read; Larkin fixed his gaze on the foreman, who held the fatal record in his hand, with calm resolution; while a quiet smile played round O'Brien's lips, as he turned to hear the expected words. "Guilty!" The word is snatched up from the lips of the foreman of the jury, and whispered through the court. They were all "guilty." So said the jury; and a murmur of applause came rolling back in response to the verdict. "Guilty!" A few there were in that court upon whom the fatal words fell with the bitterness of death, but the Englishmen who filled the crowded gallery and passages exulted at the sound: the vengeance which they longed for was at hand. The murmur died away; the sobs that rose from the dark recesses where a few stricken-hearted women had been permitted to stand were stifled; and then, amidst breathless silence, the voice of the Crown Clerk was heard demanding "if the prisoners had anything to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on them." The first to respond was Allen. A slight flush reddened his cheeks, and his eyes lit up with the fire of enthusiasm and determination, as, advancing to the front of the dock, he confronted the Court, and spoke in resolute tones as follows:-- "My Lords and Gentlemen--It is not my intention to occupy much of your time in answering your question. Your question is one that can be easily asked, but requires an answer which I am ignorant of. Abler and more eloquent men could not answer it. Where were the men who have stood in the dock--Burke, Emmett, and others, who have stood in the dock in defence of their country? When the question was put, what was their answer? Their answer was null and void. How, with your permission, I will review a portion of the evidence that has been brought against me." Here Mr. Justice Blackburne interrupted. "It was too late," he said, "to criticise the evidence, and the Court had neither the right nor the power to alter or review it. If," he added, "you have any reason to give why, either upon technical or moral grounds, the sentence should not be passed upon you, we will hear it, but it is too late for you to review the evidence to show that it was wrong." "Cannot that be done in the morning, Sir," asked Allen, who felt in his heart how easily the evidence on which he had been convicted might be torn to shreds. But the Judge said not. "No one," he said, "could alter or review the evidence in any way after the verdict had been passed by the jury. We can only" he said in conclusion, "take the verdict as right; and the only question for you is, why judgment should not follow."