"No," repeated Sebald, "I am ready to die, but the history of my crime dies with me."
Then a young man dressed in the habit of an Augustine novice, who had obtained the favor of remaining by the side of the accused, rose, and in a timid voice addressed the judges:
"Although, my lords, I know not fully Master Sebald's motives, I may, perhaps, suspect them. There are moments in the lives of the wisest and of the most just when the heart may harden and the judgment err under the goad of some great grief. Remember, my lords, that Master Koerner has lost his only child, and you, who knew the daughter, can conceive the grief of the father."
"Johann! be silent!" cried old Sebald, rising, trembling and furious. "Let the dead sleep in their graves. Their agony is past, and mine needs no increase. I make no avowals—I desire no defence. The crime was mine—the vengeance was mine, and I seek but to die with my secret!"
The old man fell back exhausted by this burst of indignation, and the young friar, covering his face with his hands, sank upon his knees before his master upon the stone floor, while the president glanced around upon his colleagues, as if to read their judgment in their faces.
"Before such a resolution," said he, "further questions were useless."
Then he called upon the prisoner to stand erect and listen to his sentence, which the clerk proceeded to read.
"Master Sebald Koerner, sculptor and burgess of the good city of Baden, having been convicted of having, on the morning of August twenty-second last past, treacherously wounded and killed the noble Otho Rayner, Baron of Arneck, and esquire to his highness the margrave, is condemned to die by the halter."
"Accused, hast aught to say?" asked the president when the reading of the doom was ended.