m Needy had assassinated the director without any violence on
his part, and consequently _without provocation_.

"What!" exclaimed Sam Needy, "I have not been provoked! Ay--it is very
true--I understand you. A drunken man strikes me with his dagger--I
kill him, I have been provoked; you show mercy to me, you send me to
Botany Bay. But a man who is not drunk, who has the perfect use of his
reason, wrings my heart for four years, humbles me for four years,
pierces me with a weapon every day, every hour, every minute, in some
unexpected point for four years. I had a wife, for whose sake I became
a thief--he tortures me through that wife; a child for whom I
stole--he tortures me through that child. I have not bread enough to
eat--a friend gives it me; he takes away my friend and my food. I ask
for my friend back--he condemns me to solitary confinement. I speak to
him--him, the spy--respectfully; he answers me in dog's language. I
tell him I am suffering--he tells me I wear him out. What would you,
then, that I should do? I kill him. It is well--I am a monster; I have
murdered this man; I have not been provoked. You take my life for
it--be it so."

The debates being closed, the presiding judge made his impartial and
luminous summing up. The results were these: a wicked life--a wretch
in purpose. Sam Needy had begun by stealing--he then murdered. All
this was true.

When the jury were about being conducted to their apartment, the judge
asked the accused if he had any thing to say upon the questions before
them.

"Little," replied Sam, "only this; I am a thief and an assassin. I
have stolen, and have slain a man. But why have I stolen? Why have I
murdered? Add these two questions to the rest, gentleman of the jury."

After a quarter of an hour's deliberation on the part of the twelve
individuals whom he had addressed as _gentlemen of the jury_, Sam
Needy was condemned to death.

Their decision was read to Sam, who contented himself with saying, "It
is well--but why has this man stolen? Why has this man murdered? These
are questions to which they make no answer."

He was carried back to prison--he supped almost gayly.

He had no wish to make an appeal against his sentence. The old woman
who had nursed him entreated him with tears to do so. He complied out
of kindness to her. It would appear as if he had resisted till the
very last moment, for when he signed his petition in the register, the
legal delay of three days h