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“Ah, the Prussian scum!” exclaimed Sambuc, wiping the sweat from his forehead, “he gave us trouble enough! Say, Silvine, light another candle, will you, so we can get a good view of the d––d pig and see what he looks like.”

Silvine arose, her wide-dilated eyes shining bright from out her colorless face. She spoke no word, but lit another candle and came and placed it by Goliah’s head on the side opposite the other; he produced the effect, thus brilliantly illuminated, of a corpse between two mortuary tapers. And in that brief moment their glances met; his was the wild, agonized look of the supplicant whom his fears have overmastered, but she affected not to understand, and withdrew to the sideboard, where she remained standing with her icy, unyielding air.

“The beast has nearly chewed my finger off,” growled Cabasse, from whose hand blood was trickling. “I’m going to spoil his ugly mug for him.”

He had taken the revolver from the floor and was holding it poised by the barrel in readiness to strike, when Sambuc disarmed him.

“No, no! none of that. We are not murderers, we francs-tireurs; we are judges. Do you hear, you dirty Prussian? we’re going to try you; and you need have no fear, your rights shall be respected. We can’t let you speak in your own defense, for if we should unmuzzle you you would split our ears with your bellowing, but I’ll see that you have a lawyer presently, and a famous good one, too!”

He went and got three chairs and placed them in a row, forming what it pleased him to call the court, he sitting in the middle with one of his followers on either hand. When all three were seated he arose and commenced to speak, at first ironically aping the gravity of the magistrate, but soon launching into a tirade of blood-thirsty invective.

“I have the honor to be at the same time President of the Court and Public Prosecutor. That, I am aware, is not strictly in order, but there are not enough of us to fill all the roles. I accuse you, therefore, of entering France to play the spy on us, recompensing us for our hospitality with the most abominable treason. It is to you to whom we are principally indebted for our recent disasters, for after the battle of Nouart you guided the Bavarians across the wood of Dieulet by night to Beaumont. No one but a man who had lived a long time in the country and was acquainted with every path and cross-road could have done it, and on this point the conviction of the court is unalterable; you were seen conducting the enemy’s artillery over roads that had become lakes of liquid mud, where eight horses had to be hitched to a single gun to drag it out of the slough. A person looking at those roads would hesitate to believe that an army corps could ever have passed over them. Had it not been for you and your criminal action in settling among us and betraying us the surprise of Beaumont would have never been, we should not have been compelled to retreat on Sedan, and perhaps in the end we might have come off victorious. I will say nothing of the disgusting career you have been pursuing since then, coming here in disguise, terrorizing and denouncing the poor country people, so that they tremble at the mention of your name. You have descended to a depth of depravity beyond which it is impossible to go, and I demand from the court sentence of death.”

Silence prevailed in the room. He had resumed his seat, and finally, rising again, said:

“I assign Ducat to you as counsel for the defense. He has been sheriff’s officer, and might have made his mark had it not been for his little weakness. You see that I deny you nothing; we are disposed to treat you well.”

Goliah, who could not stir a finger, bent his eyes on his improvised defender. It was in his eyes alone that evidence of life remained, eyes that burned intensely with ardent supplication under the ashy brow, where the sweat of anguish stood in big drops, notwithstanding the cold.