“Yes, your Grace; they were given to us by Hacket in Count Schumacker’s name. The count also distributed arms to the miners; for we did not need them, we mountaineers, who live by our gun and game-bag. And I myself, sir, such as you see me, trussed as I am like a miserable fowl to be roasted, have more than once, in one of our deep valleys, brought down an old eagle flying so high that it looked like a lark or a thrush.”
“You hear, judges,” remarked the private secretary; “the prisoner Schumacker distributed arms and banners to the rebels, through Hacket.”
“Kennybol,” asked the president, “have you anything more to say?”
“Nothing, your Grace, except that I do not deserve death. I only lent a hand in brotherly love to the miners, and I’ll venture to say before all your worships that my bullet, old hunter as I am, never touched one of the king’s deer.”
The president, without answering this plea, cross-examined Kennybol’s two companions; they were the leaders of the miners. The older of the two, who stated that his name was Jonas, repeated Kennybol’s testimony in slightly different words. The other,—the same young man who had noticed such a strong resemblance between the private secretary and the treacherous Hacket,—called himself Norbith, and proudly avowed his share in the rebellion, but refused to reveal anything regarding Hacket and Schumacker, saying that he had sworn secrecy, and had forgotten everything but that oath. In vain the president tried threats and entreaties; the obstinate youth was not to be moved. Moreover, he insisted that he had not rebelled on Schumacker’s account, but simply because his old mother was cold and hungry. He did not deny that he might deserve to die; but he declared that it would be unjust to kill him, because in killing him they would also kill his poor mother, who had done nothing to merit punishment.
When Norbith ceased speaking, the private secretary briefly summed up the heavy charges against the prisoners, and more especially against Schumacker. He read some of the seditious mottoes on the flags, and showed how the general agreement of the answers of the ex-chancellor’s accomplices, and even the silence of Norbith bound by a fanatical oath, tended to inculpate him. “There now remains,” he said in close, “but a single prisoner to be examined, and we have strong reasons for thinking him the secret agent of the authority who has ill protected the peace of the province of Throndhjem. This authority has favored, if not by his guilty connivance, at least by his fatal negligence, the outbreak of the revolt which must destroy all these unhappy men, and restore Schumacker to the scaffold from which the king’s clemency so generously preserved him.”
Ethel, whose fears for Ordener were now converted into cruel apprehensions for her father, shuddered at these ominous words, and wept floods of tears when her father rose and said quietly: “Chancellor d’Ahlefeld, I admire your skill. Have you summoned the hangman?”
The unfortunate girl thought her cup of bitterness was full: she was mistaken.
The sixth prisoner now stood up. With a superb gesture he swept back the hair which covered his face, and replied to the president’s questions in a clear, firm voice: “My name is Ordener Guldenlew, Baron Thorwick, Knight of the Dannebrog.”
An exclamation of surprise escaped the secretary: “The viceroy’s son!”