Bracton, who until this moment had uttered no word but had contented himself with standing calmly before his judges, spoke now. [Illustration: "'Messiers--this story is false.'"] "Messieurs," he said, very calmly, "this story is false. It may be that in my attempt to save a woman I have learnt to love, a woman whom I loved with my whole heart and soul even ere I went to the Weiss Haus that night, I have put myself in the grasp of your military laws. But be that so or not," and now his voice was more firm, even perhaps stronger, "I will not be saddled with a false accusation and hold my peace. Sparmann was already wounded to the death, as I know now, though I knew it not when he passed me, touched me, in the dark and then fled down the stairs from me, deeming me most probably the man from whose hands a moment before he had received his death-wound. But it was not from my hand he received it. I am no murderer, no midnight assassin. I had fought once with Sparmann in England, and vanquished him in fair fight. Messieurs, you know well enough that the man who vanquishes another in the open does not murder him afterwards in the dark. Had I found him in the Weiss Haus that night, I should have seized on him, it may be I should have forced him to fight with me again, but I should not have done that of which this traitor accuses me." These words had made a good impression on those to whom they were addressed--so good a one, indeed, that, had there been no other charge against Bevill, he might possibly have gone free at that moment. Unhappily, however, there did remain the other charges that stood so black against him, and those charges required neither the assertion nor the corroboration of Francbois. They proved themselves. But whatever impression his words may have made on those who were now the arbiters of life and death to him, a far deeper impression--a palpable one--had been produced on the man who sat with his head buried in his hands close by that column against which the doomsman leaned. At the first sound of Bevill's voice this man, this fanatic who appeared to have vowed himself to the slaughter of renegades and apostates, had lifted his bloodstained and bruised face from his hands, and had stared amazed as though a spectre had suddenly appeared before him; yet even this expression of open-eyed astonishment gave way to a still deeper appearance of bewilderment as now Francbois, in answer to Bevill's words, repeated again his assertions while asking if he who now stood on the threshold of his grave had any reason to lie? So deep an appearance, indeed, had that man's bewilderment assumed that, at last, he appeared unable to support it further, and let his face fall once more into its previous position. And in all that great hall there was not one, or only one--the dreadful creature who stood near Stuven--who had witnessed the man's astonishment and the lifting of his face out of his hands.