"Seize them!" cried Athol; "my life is threatened by his myrmidons."
Marshals instantly approached; but Wallace, who had hitherto stood in silent dignity, turned to them with that tone of justice which had ever commanded from his lips, and bade them forbear:
"Touch these knights at your peril, marshals!" said he; "no man in this chamber is above the laws, and they protect every Scot who resents unjust aspersions upon his own character, or irrelevant and prejudicing attacks on that of an arraigned friend. It is before the majesty of the laws that I now stand; but were injury to usurp its place, not all the lords in Scotland should detain me a moment in a scene so unworthy of my country."
The marshals retreated, for they had been accustomed to regard with implicit deference the opinion of Sir William Wallace on the laws; and though he now stood in the light of their violator, yet memory bore testimony that he had always read them aright, and, to this hour, had ever appeared to make them the guide of his actions.
Athol saw that none in the assembly had courage to enforce this act of violence, and blazing with fury, he poured his whole wrath upon Wallace. "Imperious, arrogant traitor!" cried he; "this presumption only deepens our impression of your guilt! Demean yourself with more reverence to this august court, or expect to be sentenced on the proof which such insolence amply gives; we require no other to proclaim your domineering spirit, and at once to condemn you as the premeditated tyrant of land."
"Lord Athol," replied Wallace, "what is just I would say in the face of all the courts in Christendom. It is not in the power of man to make me silent when I see the laws of country outraged and my countrymen oppressed. Though I may submit my own cheek to the blow, I will not permit theirs to share the stroke. I have answered you, earl, to this point and am ready to hear you to the end."
Athol resumed. "I am not your only accuser, proudly-confident man; you shall see one whose truth cannot be doubted, and whose first glance will bow that haughty spirit, and cover that bold front with the livery of shame! My lord," cried he, turning to the regent, "I shall bring a most illustrious witness before you; one who will prove on oath that it was the intention of this arch-hypocrite, this angler for women's hearts, this perverter of men's understandings, before another moon to bury deep in blood the very people whom he now insidiously affects to protect! But to open your and the nation's eyes at once, to overwhelm him with his fate, I now call forth the evidence."
The marshals opened a door in the side of the hall, and led a lady forward, habited in regal splendor, and covered from head to foot with a veil of so transparent a texture, that her costly apparel and majestic contour were distinctly seen through it. She was conducted to a chair on an elevated platform a few paces from where Wallace stood. On her being seated the regent rose, and in a tremulous voice addressed her:
"Joanna, Countess of Strathearn and Mar, Princess of the Orkneys, we adjure thee by thy princely dignity, and in the name of the King of kings, to bear a just witness to the truth or falsehood, of the charges of treason and conspiracy now brought against Sir William Wallace."
The name of his accuser made Wallace start; and the sight of her unblushing face, for she threw aside her veil the moment she was addressed, overspread his cheek with a tinge of that shame for her which she was now too hardened in determined crime to feel herself. Edwin gazed at her in speechless horror; while she, casting a glance at Wallace, in which the full purpose of her soul was declared, turned with a softened though majestic air, to the regent, and spoke: