“The same dread fate await me too, if there be reason for merciful judgment here.” Hanabusa spoke with deliberation, as he joined the other accusers.
“Woe is me!” wailed Setos, unsteadily. “Yet I and all my posterity would be forever accursed if we hindered justice. I am here to claim the life of Alcamayn, and to stake my own on the demand.”
He did not look at the jeweler, and it seemed difficult for him to stand, while the accused said in a low voice:
“May I be early deprived of physical life in four succeeding incarnations, if I be not innocent of this charge.”
“Thou standest in a perilous position, Alcamayn,” cautioned Yermah. “Weigh thy words well!”
“Had my days four times their natural span, I should risk them without fear.”
There was no bravado in Alcamayn’s tone or manner.
He feared the worst, and there was a hungry, desperate expectancy in every glance. The days had gone over his head like years.
Stripped of all finery and with close cropped hair, his bat-wing ears stood out from his head. The hawk face, clean-shaven, showed the cunning and courage of a cornered rat. The hunchback’s supreme egotism stood him in good stead, but the inner man had no compunction for what he had done. He was appalled at the unexpected death of Orondo, never having counted on such an outcome.
But what criminal ever does look forward to being caught and overwhelmed with his own guilt?