Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side—that of the headsman with the axe.
Justice to-day could make short work of her duties.
Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low.
For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event—a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm!
The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had—presumably—wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects.
And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession.
His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There had been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers.
The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document.
A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude.
Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage.