"If innocent, why are they in hiding?"
"I tell you, sir, they are innocent. Their only fault is that they have tried to be loyal to me."
"Were they with you when the body was buried?"
Dan made no answer.
"Did they bury it?"
Still no answer. The Deemster turned to the clerk, "The six."
"Deemster," Dan said, with stubborn resolution, "why should I tell you what is not true? I have come here when, like the men themselves, I might have kept away."
"You have come here, prisoner, when the hand of the law was upon you, when its vengeance was encircling you, entrapping you, when it was useless to hold out longer; you have come here thinking to lessen your punishment by your surrender. But you have been mistaken. A surrender extorted when capture is certain, like a confession made when crime can not be denied, has never yet been allowed to lessen the punishment of the guilty. Nor shall it lessen it now."
Then as the Deemster rose a cry rang through the court. It was such a cry out of a great heart as tells a whole story to a multitude. In a moment the people saw and knew all. They looked at the two who stood before them, Dan and Mona, the prisoner and the witness, with eyes that filled, and from their dry throats there rose a deep groan from their midst.
"I tell you, Deemster, it is false, and the men are innocent," said Dan.