"The prisoner's attitude, my lord," he said, "is one of contempt for this Court. He must be made to answer more fully the charges that are preferred against him."
"Then 'tis for you to question him," retorted the Lord Chief Justice drily.
Emboldened by Michael's attitude of passive acquiescence, Pye and Oates surpassed themselves. Their story gained in detail, in circumstantial broiderings under cross-examination. Once or twice their imagination and impudence carrying them too far, they palpably contradicted one another. A man's voice then rose from the midst of the spectators: "These men are accursed liars!"
The voice was authoritative and loud, as of a man accustomed to be obeyed. And no one cried "Hush!" to the remark, since it came from royal lips.
After an examination which we know lasted nearly an hour, the two witnesses were dismissed. They left the great hall together and walked with an assured air of satisfaction across to the small room beyond the bench, where they were bidden to wait in case they were required again. To a sanely judicial mind the only point which would present itself in the evidence of these miscreants as being uncontradicted and unquestionably established by them, was that the treasonable converse between the accused and a minister of the King of France did take place at the tavern of the "Rat Mort" in Paris in the evening of the nineteenth day of April of this same year.
Beyond that it was a tangle which Michael, had he chosen, could easily have unravelled in his own favour. But this he did not mean to do; he was only anxious for the end.
While the lying informer spoke of that same nineteenth day of April his thoughts flew back on the sable wings of a dead past to all the memories that clung to that day.
The religious ceremony at St. Gervais, the dance on the dusty floor of the tailor's back shop, the ride through the darkness along the lonely road with his beloved clinging to him, the while his arm ached with an exquisite sense of numbness under the delicious burden which it bore.
These men spoke of the evening of that nineteenth day of April! Oh, the remembrance of every hour, every minute which the date recalled!
The darkened room in the old inn, the streaks of moonbeam which kissed the gold of her hair, the April breeze which caused her curls to flutter, and the sighing of the reeds and young acacia boughs like spirit whisperings that presaged impending doom!