keeping of the English authorities.

At this point Hunston could not repress a shudder.

And why? He thought of what must necessarily follow.

His fevered fancy flew ahead, and he saw himself in the dock, faced by
the stony-faced judge, and put through the torture of cross-examination
which laid bare the innermost recesses of his black heart in spite of
himself.

He saw further on yet.

He shut his eyes as he went on and heard the tramp of the twelve jurors
re-entering the court in the midst of a profound and awesome silence.

He heard the solemn formula; he heard the hollow voice of the foreman
give the verdict--

"Guilty!"

All that he heard and saw in his mind's eye, in that brief but
unpleasant hustling he had to go through at the hands of the ungenerous
and indefatigable officer Daniel Pike.

And Hunston now, being half cowed by his captor, was being driven
through the streets like a lamb to the slaughter, when a sudden and
startling incident changed the whole spirit of the scene, even in the
twinkling of an eye.