"Mercy!" he jeered. "Mercy! Nay, there shall be no mercy. They shall all suffer, not one shall escape, not one. I will exterminate them all. Verily, I will make an example of these turbulent townsfolk, I will teach them a lesson they shall not soon forget. Mercy, aye, they shall have mercy, even such mercy as they have deserved. A merciful death."
"Ah, no, my lord! But for this girl," pleaded Cicely; desperately, "surely for her."
"Drive on," shouted Jeffreys fiercely. Then seeing the coachman hesitate and glance doubtfully at Cicely, who clung to the coach door, he rapped out a string of oaths and roared to the man to whip up his horses and proceed.
The coach moved on.
But Cicely, desperate, still clung to the door of the coach, sobbing out her appeal.
"Ah, no, my lord! on this one at least have pity. No no, not death, my lord, not death."
Then the chief justice, livid with fury, rose in his coach, and shouted to his coachman to lash at her with his whip, and drive her away. Terrified, the man obeyed, striking at her blindly. The lash stung across her hands and with a sharp cry she sank on to her knees on the road as the coach rolled onwards, Jeffreys lying back shuddering on his pillows, his face livid with agony, but the bitter smile still upon his lips.
CHAPTER XII
The morning of the 16th broke bright and fresh from the thin September mists. The sunbeams shot across the rosy sky, and sparkled in the clear dewdrops, the late roses raised their glowing heads to meet the light, and the birds in the woods chorused joyously their Autumn serenade. But in the City of Taunton the morning light revealed the grey and careworn faces of many who, hoping little from the morrow, had watched throughout the night in an anguish of doubt and suspense, and a passion of hopeless prayer. Be the morning sunbeams never so bright, they could not dispel the darkness of that day for Taunton.
The sun climbed over the roofs, and peered into the high windows of the prisons, where the captives roused themselves and prepared to stand their trial.