ession. Even so, it was only on his trial
that Sir Walter plumbed the full depth of Stukeley's baseness; for it
was only then he learnt that his kinsman had been armed by a warrant
of immunity to assist his projects of escape, so that he might the more
effectively incriminate and betray him; and Sir Walter discovered also
that the ship in which he had landed, and other matters, were to provide
additional Judas' fees to this acquisitive betrayer.

If to escape his enemies Sir Walter had had recourse to artifices
unworthy the great hero that he was, now that all hope was lost he
conducted himself with a dignity and cheerfulness beyond equal. So
calm and self-possessed and masterly was his defence from the charge of
piracy preferred at the request of Spain, and so shrewd in its inflaming
appeal to public opinion, that his judges were constrained to abandon
that line of prosecution, and could discover no way of giving his head
to King James save by falling back upon the thirteen-year old sentence
of death against him. Of this they now ordered execution.

Never a man who loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it met
death as blithely. He dressed himself for the scaffold with that
elegance and richness which all his life he had observed. He wore a ruff
band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured
satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches and
ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his plumed hat he covered his white
locks with a wrought nightcap. This last he bestowed on his way to the
scaffold upon a bald-headed old man who had come to take a last look of
him, with the observation that he was more in need of it than himself.
When he had removed it, it was observed that his hair was not curled as
usual. This was a matter that had fretted his barber Peter in the prison
of the Gatehouse at Westminster that morning. But Sir Walter had put him
off with a laugh and a jest.

"Let them comb it that shall have it," he had said of his own head.

Having taken his leave of the friends who had flocked about him with
the observation that he had a long journey before him, he called for
the axe, and, when presented to him, ran his fingers along the edge, and
smiled.

"Sharp medicine," quoth he, "but a sound cure for all diseases."

When presently the executioner bade him turn his head to the East:

"It is no great matter which way a man's head stands, so that his heart
lies right," he sa