In five days they were to be executed.
In the court there was one person who heard the sentence with the greatest possible terror.
This was Theodora.
Why should it so affect her?
It was surely not that she could have any sympathy with such rogues and murdering villains.
Justice was swift in the execution of its decrees here, and the condemned brigands were doomed to death within five days.
"Five days!" Theodora repeated to herself again and again, as she left the court. "Five days! So short. Well, then I must my do duty come what may. To-morrow may yet be in time—or the next day."
Still she was sorely perplexed.
"If I avow all, I shall incur the undying enmity of the band," she reasoned; "and if I keep silent, I shall be the murderess of those men—men with whom I have grown up and been taught to look upon as brothers."
She had some strange secret upon her mind which troubled her sorely.