by all
potent oaths, for every drop of blood that now trickles in mine eyes I
will wring a groan out of thy carcass. Away with him!" he added. "Here
is no place! Off with him to my house.--I will number every joint of thy
body with a torture."

But Dick, putting off his captors, uplifted his voice.

"Sanctuary!" he shouted. "Sanctuary! Ho, there, my fathers! They would
drag me from the church!"

"From the church thou hast defiled with murder, boy," added a tall man,
magnificently dressed.

"On what probation?" cried Dick. "They do accuse me, indeed, of some
complicity, but have not proved one tittle. I was, in truth, a suitor
for this damsel's hand; and she, I will be bold to say it, repaid my
suit with favour. But what then? To love a maid is no offence, I
trow--nay, nor to gain her love. In all else I stand here free from
guiltiness."

There was a murmur of approval among the bystanders, so boldly Dick
declared his innocence; but at the same time a throng of accusers arose
upon the other side, crying how he had been found last night in Sir
Daniel's house, how he wore a sacrilegious disguise; and in the midst of
the babel, Sir Oliver indicated Lawless, both by voice and gesture, as
accomplice to the fact. He, in his turn, was dragged from his seat and
set beside his leader. The feelings of the crowd rose high on either
side, and while some dragged the prisoners to and fro to favour their
escape, others cursed and struck them with their fists. Dick's ears rang
and his brain swam dizzily, like a man struggling in the eddies of a
furious river.

But the tall man, who had already answered Dick, by a prodigious
exercise of voice restored silence and order in the mob.

"Search them," he said, "for arms. We may so judge of their intentions."

Upon Dick they found no weapon but his poniard, and this told in his
favour, until one man officiously drew it from its sheath, and found it
still uncleansed of the blood of Rutter. At this there was a great shout
among Sir Daniel's followers, which the tall man suppressed by a gesture
and an imperious glance. But when it came to the turn of Lawless, there
was found under his gown a sheaf of arrows identical with those that had
been shot.

"How say ye now?" asked the tall man, frowningly, of Dick.

"Sir," replied Dick, "I am here in sanctuary, is it not so? Well, sir, I
see by your bearing that ye are high in station, and I read in your
countenance the marks of piety and jus