rom the right to the left of the frieze, and then from the
left to the right again. It was noticeable that his lips moved slightly
at each stage of this laborious visual journey. "Forty-seven."
"Forty-nine." "Forty-eight." Stokes was immensely interested in that
compelling frieze. He counted and recounted the number of figures in the
Greek fret with painful iteration. Apparently he was satisfied at last,
and then his eyes began to study the inkstand in front of the President.
The President seemed an enormous distance away, but the inkstand very
near and very large, and he found himself wondering why it was round,
why it wasn't square, or hexagonal, or elliptic. Then he speculated
whether the ink was blue or black, or red, and why people never used
green or yellow. His brain had gone through all the colours of the
spectrum when a pull at his sleeve by the escort attracted his
attention. Apparently the Colonel was saying something to him.

"Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

The prisoner stared, but said nothing. The escort again pulled his
sleeve as the Colonel repeated the question.

Stokes cleared his throat, and looking his interlocutor straight in the
face, said, "Guilty, sir." The members of the court looked at each
other, the Colonel whispered to the Judge-Advocate, the Judge-Advocate
to the Prosecutor. The Judge-Advocate turned to the prisoner, "Do you
realise," he asked, not unkindly, "that if you plead 'Guilty' you will
not be able to call any evidence as to extenuating circumstances?" The
prisoner pondered for a moment; it seemed to him that the
Judge-Advocate's voice was almost persuasive.

"Well, I'll say 'not guilty,' sir."

He now saw the President quite close to him; that monstrous inkstand had
diminished to its natural size. Nothing was to be heard beyond the
hissing of the rain but the scratching of the Judge-Advocate's quill, as
he slowly dictated to himself the words "The--prisoner--pleads--'not
guilty.'" But why they had asked him a question which could only admit
of one answer and then persuaded him to give the wrong one, was a thing
that both puzzled and distressed John Stokes. Why all this solemn
ritual, he speculated painfully; he was surely as good as dead already.
He found himself wondering whether the sentence of the Court would be
carried out in the presence of only the firing party, or whether the
whole of his battalion would be paraded. And he fell to wondering
whether he would be rep