"Dinner is served, gentlemen," he said. "I will, if you please, make your beds while you are absent." They rose and went together to the saloon carriage. "I'm dry, son, and I've sure earned a drink," said Peter. "You've earned a vast deal more than I or any man can ever pay you, Ganns," said Brendon. "Don't say it, or think it. I've done nothing that you wouldn't have done if you had been free. And always remember this: I shall never blame you, even when I think with dearest affection of my old friend. I shall only blame myself, because the final, fatal mistake was mine--not yours. I was the fool to trust you and had no excuse for doing so. You were not to be trusted for a moment just then, and I ought to have known it. 'Twas our limited capability that made you err, that made me err, that made Michael Pendean err. The best laid plans of mice and men--you know, Mark. The villain mars his villainy; the virtuous smudge their white record; the deep brain suddenly runs dry--all because perfection, in good or evil, is denied to saints and sinners alike." CHAPTER XVIII CONFESSION During the autumn assizes, Michael Pendean was tried at Exeter and condemned to death for the murders of Robert, Bendigo and Albert Redmayne. He offered no defence and he was only impatient to return to his seclusion within the red walls of the county jail, where he occupied the brief balance of his days with just such a statement as Peter Ganns had foretold that he would seek to make. This extraordinary document was very characteristic of the criminal. It possessed a sort of glamour; but it failed of real distinction and the quality proper to greatness, even as the crimes it recorded and the man responsible for them. Pendean's confession revealed an insensibility, a faulty sense of humour, an affectation and a love for the glittering and the grandiose that robbed it of any supreme claim in the annals or literature of murder. The document ended with an assurance that Michael would never die at the hands of his fellow man. He had repeated this assertion on several occasions and every conceivable precaution was taken to prevent evasion of his sentence--an issue to be recorded in its proper place. Here is his statement, word for word as he wrote it. * * * * * MY APOLOGIA "_Hearken, ye judges! There is another madness besides, and it is before the deed. Ah! Ye have not gone deep enough into this soul! Thus speaketh the red judge: 'Why did this criminal commit murder? He meant to rob.' I tell you, however, that his soul hungered for blood, not booty: he thirsted for the happiness of the knife!_" And again: "_What is this man? A coil of wild serpents at war against themselves--so they are driven apart to seek their prey in the world._"