“I would stamp out the whole brood of vipers, could I catch them,” said Jeffreys.
Poor Alice felt her heart sink, but she was not to be defeated.
“Whatever his crime, my lord, the sum I am authorised to place in your Lordship’s hands, on receiving his pardon, will, I hope, condone it.”
“Ho, ho,” said the Chief Justice, eyeing the notes and rolls of gold; then, turning to a list he had by his side: “I see he is condemned to be hung, and should have been strung up with his brother this afternoon. To pardon him is impossible. All I can do is to commute his sentence, and condemn him to be sent as a slave to the West Indies. There, do not be weeping, wench. You have obtained your lover’s life, at a cheap rate too. If you care for him you will rejoice. You have saved him for a trumpery thousand pounds.”
“But can he not be pardoned, can he not be pardoned, my lord?” exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands. “To be banished to the West Indies as a slave is a terrible punishment.”
“We can hang him instead,” said Jeffreys.
“Then, will you give me a paper stating that his sentence is commuted?”
“You doubt my word, wench? Well, you shall have it to satisfy your incredulity,” and he wrote a few lines. “Stephen Battiscombe, sentenced to death, punishment commuted to ten years’ slavery in Jamaica.”
Alice could scarcely refrain from giving a cry of dismay as she saw this. “Could he not be sent to Virginia?” she asked.
“Could you not go out and join him there?” exclaimed the Judge, tauntingly. “If you are not content with having saved your crop-eared lover’s life, you shall have his dead body by to-morrow morning, wench, and I will order him to be hung forthwith.”