"It is true in part," I answered firmly. "I seized not the gate, but part of the tower, in order to preserve my life and to protect certain ladies traveling with me from the violence of a crowd which, under a misapprehension, was threatening to do us a mischief." The priest again shook his head, and smiled faintly at the carved roof. His colleagues were perhaps somewhat moved in my favor, for a few words passed between them. However, in the end they shook their heads, and the president mechanically asked me if I had anything further to say. "Nothing!" I replied bitterly. The ecclesiastic's cynical heedlessness, his air of one whose mind is made up, seemed so cruel to me whose life was at stake, that I lost patience. "Except what I have said," I continued--"that for the wounding, it was done in error; and for the gate-seizing, I would do it again to save the lives of those with me. Only that and this: that I am a foreigner ignorant of your language and customs, desiring only to pass peacefully through your country." "That is all?" the president asked impassively. "All," I answered, yet with a strange tightening at my throat. Was it all? All I could say for my life? I was waiting, sore and angry and desperate, to hear the sentence, when there came an interruption. Master Lindstrom, whose presence at my side I had forgotten, broke suddenly into a torrent of impassioned words, and his urgent voice, ringing through the court, seemed in a moment to change its aspect--to infuse into it some degree of life and sympathy. More than one guttural exclamation, which seemed to mark approval, burst from the throng at the back of the hall. In another moment, indeed, the Dutchman's courage might have saved me. But there was one who marked the danger. The Sub-dean, who had at first only glowered at the speaker in rude astonishment, now cut him short with a harsh question. "One moment, Master Dutchman!" he cried. "Are you one of the heretics who call themselves Protestants?" "I am. But I understand that there is here liberty of conscience," our friend answered manfully, nothing daunted in his fervor at finding the attack turned upon himself. "That depends upon the conscience," the priest answered with a scowl. "We will have no Anabaptists here, nor foreign praters to bring us into feud with our neighbors. It is enough that such men as you are allowed to live. We will not be bearded by you, so take warning! Take heed, I say, Master Dutchman, and be silent!" he repeated, leaning forward and clapping his hand upon the table. I touched Master Lindstrom's sleeve--who would of himself have persisted--and stayed him. "It is of no use," I muttered. "That dog in a crochet has condemned me. He will have his way!"