"
"Well?"
"What do you think he did next?"
"Cannot guess--drowned himself?"
"No, and this proves what I say, that a murderer and a hero are all
but one. He surrendered himself to justice, and stood mute at the bar,
and, in order to secure his estates to his surviving child, he had the
resolution to die under the dreadful punishment of _peine forte_."
"What is that, lawyer?"
"Death by iron weights laid on the bare body until the life is crushed
out of it."
"Dreadful! And did he secure his estates to his child by suffering
such a death?"
"He did. He stood mute at the bar, and let judgment go against him
without trial. It is all in black and white. The Crown cannot
confiscate a man's estate until he is tried and condemned."
"What of an outlaw?" asked Ralph somewhat eagerly.
"A man's flight is equal to a plea of guilty."
"I had a comrade once," said Ralph with some tremor of voice; "he fled
from judgment and was outlawed, and his poor children were turned into
the road. Could he have kept his lands for his family by delivering
his body to that death you speak of?"
"He could.
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