Helena, with the other spectators, was passing out of the room when the Sirdar touched her on the shoulder and said, haltingly—
"Have you perhaps got ... can you trust me with those letters for a little while?"
By some impulse, hardly intelligible to herself, Helena had brought Gordon's letters with her, and after a moment's hesitation she took them out of her pocket and gave them to the Sirdar, saying, very faintly, but very sweetly—
"Yes, I can trust them to you."
Then with the Princess she went out into the great hall and sat there on a window-seat, while the Court was closed. There was a sad and solemn expression in her face, and seeing this, even through her dark veil, the officers, who were pacing to and fro, moved by that delicacy which is the nobler part of an English gentleman's reserve—respect for the intimacies that are sacred to another person—merely bowed to her as they passed.
The strain was great, for she knew what was going on behind the closed door of the Court-room. The Judges were trying to find in the circumstances of Gordon's arrest some excuse for his desertion. She could see the Sirdar and Hafiz struggling to show that, however irregular and reprehensible from a disciplinary standpoint, Gordon's had been the higher patriotism; that, coming back under those strange conditions and in that strange disguise, he had deliberately returned to die. And she could see the Court powerfully moved by that plea, yet helpless to take account of it.
Half-an-hour passed; an hour; nearly two hours, and then a young officer came up to tell Helena that the Court was about to re-open.
"I think—I hope they intend to recommend him to mercy," he said, blunderingly, and at the next moment he felt as if he would like to cut his tongue out. But Helena was unhurt. She held up her head for the first time that day, and, to the Princess's surprise, when they re-entered the room, and the officers made way for her, she pushed through to the front and took a seat, back to the wall, immediately before the Sirdar and almost face to face with Gordon.
There was that tense atmosphere in the Court which always precedes a sentence, but there was also a sort of humid air, as if the Angel of Pity had passed through the place and softened it to tears.
Gordon was told to rise, and then the President, obviously affected, proceeded to address him. He might say at once that the Judges regretted to find themselves unable to take account of the moral aspects of the case. Nothing but its military aspects came within their cognisance. That being so, the Court, notwithstanding the able and ingenious defence, could find no excuse for insubordination—the first duty of a soldier was to obey. In like manner they could find no excuse for a savage personal attack by an officer in uniform upon another officer in the exercise of his office—it was conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. Finally, the Court could find no excuse for desertion—it was an act of great offence to the flag which a soldier was sworn to serve.