he had long suspected - was the vilest work of God, and that only
a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best
exterminated.



CHAPTER III

THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE


It was not until two months later - on the 19th of September, if
you must have the actual date - that Peter Blood was brought to
trial, upon a charge of high treason. We know that he was not
guilty of this; but we need not doubt that he was quite capable
of it by the time he was indicted. Those two months of inhuman,
unspeakable imprisonment had moved his mind to a cold and deadly
hatred of King James and his representatives. It says something
for his fortitude that in all the circumstances he should still
have had a mind at all. Yet, terrible as was the position of this
entirely innocent man, he had cause for thankfulness on two counts.
The first of these was that he should have been brought to trial at
all; the second, that his trial took place on the date named, and
not a day earlier. In the very delay which exacerbated him lay -
although he did not realize it - his only chance of avoiding the
gallows.

Easily, but for the favour of Fortune, he might have been one of
those haled, on the morrow of the battle, more or less haphazard
from the overflowing gaol at Bridgewater to be summarily hanged in