Then the judge, who has a mission to learn if these people are sincere, answers to the prisoner and for the far-off masters of the court:
"Thou canst not come within the law; because thou canst not claim sincerity. Thy brother and fellow-laborer hath just now recanted, and this is proof that thou art not sincere, but wickedly obstinate. If thy brother had with thee remained firm and immovable I might have believed in thy cause. But what man hath done man can do again. Therefore, recant or rest thou within the cold and lonely walls."
And the sun and moon of another month, stealing through iron-bound chinks of rock, see the patriot pacing a dismal cell.
The traitor calls himself a reformer. He is merely a coward. And of all the wretches whose presence taints the air of earth and heaven, the coward is the worst. Great Caesar said:
"The coward's fears make him die many times before his death.
"The valiant never taste of death but once,
"Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come."
The traitor professes to believe that his act of betrayal will disrupt the cause which he deserts. This is the coward rebel's wish. How abjectly and miserably he fails! Sometimes the traitor lops from the sturdy trunk a straggling branch; but does the tree thrive less for that? Nay. The other twigs only bear blossoms the more redolent and fruit the more rosy. Sometimes the traitor tears away a cracked, a seamed, a shaling stone from the half-completed structure. What if a measure of disaster follow? Cannot the builder renew? And does he not choose better rock to bear the weight of his fair edifice? Sometimes the traitor only hastens the success which he seeks to avert; sometimes he delays the triumph against which he rebels. But always ultimately the car of destiny moves to its appointed end. And the cowardly betrayer who thought to stop its career by holding back with his puny arms is dragged by it to his miserable end, while his associates—dead or alive go with it to the day of triumph.
* * * * *
There was once a man of mighty prowess, endowed from his first breath with a wondrous strength. When he grew to manhood, brutes, men and even armies fell in the dust at his feet. It had been divinely promised of him that he should be a marvel of strength, and that he should begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines, and men and chains, and bolts and gates could not prevail against his manly, heroic lustiness. But there came a woman, with her soft, betraying touch. She caressed him and begged for love of her that he would reveal the secret of his miraculous strength. In a foolish moment he yielded; and then were his Jove-like locks shorn from his head; and he became a blind lackey, the serf of the Philistines. Delilah, the betrayer, with her traitorous kiss upon Samson's lips, and her traitorous whisper through the tent to his waiting enemy, could do what no thousand of open foes could accomplish. She made the proud, superb, perfect lion a weak, whining whelp.