COBHAM.
Nothing but this, that you conceal our names;
So, gentle lady, pass for being spied.
LADY POWIS.
My heart I leave, to bear part of your grief.
[Exit.]
JUDGE.
Call the prisoners to the bar. Sir Richard Lee,
What evidence can you bring against these people,
To prove them guilty of the murder done?
LEE.
This bloody towel and these naked knives,
Beside we found them sitting by the place,
Where the dead body lay, within a bush.
JUDGE.
What answer you why law should not proceed,
According to the evidence given in,
To tax ye with the penalty of death?
COBHAM.
That we are free from murder’s very thoughts,
And know not how the gentleman was slain.
FIRST JUSTICE.
How came this linen cloth so bloody then?
LADY COBHAM.
My husband hot with travelling, my lord,
His nose gushed out a bleeding, that was it.
SECOND JUSTICE. But wherefore were your sharp edged knives unsheathed?