[CHAPTER LI.]
AGAINST THE WORLD.
Anstruther lay there to all appearances quite dead. So swift and dramatic had the whole thing been, that nobody moved for a moment; indeed, a greater portion of the excited audience did not seem to grasp what had happened. Rigby turned and looked at Benin, who was frowning in the direction of the dock, and breathing hard as if he had run fast and far. Then one of the warders in the court moved to the assistance of his colleague, and between them they raised the prisoner so that his haggard face appeared over the edge of the rail. With an assumption of indifference, the Frenchman dropped back into his seat again.
"Surely he is not afraid of you," Jack whispered. "And yet I feel quite certain that your appearance frightened him terribly."
"He has good need to be afraid of me," Benin growled. "I could hang that man--I could prove him guilty of murder. For, look: that man and myself have met in Paris. You have little notion of the extent of his crime. But he is not dead--men of that type do not die so easily. See, he is opening his eyes again."
Anstruther had struggled into an upright position, and was feebly gasping for water. He gave one half-frightened glance in the direction of the Frenchman, who shrugged his shoulders, as if to say the whole affair was no business of his.
"I shall not betray him," he whispered to Rigby. "It is a painful case, which will be no better for being dragged into the light of day. Besides, that man will be punished enough; a long term of imprisonment will be worse to him than hanging. He understands, now, that I am not going to betray him."
Anstruther was himself again at last. He stood rigid and erect; there was the faint suggestion of a smile upon his face.
"Merely a passing weakness," he murmured. "I have to apologize to the court for the trouble I am giving. May I be allowed to make a statement?"
"It would have been far better if the statement had come through your counsel," the judge said. "I warned you from the first that you were imperiling your position by refusing to accept legal aid. If the jury find you guilty----"