the rest, the mercy which for his sake imperilled worthier
men and sacred truths would have been no less than a crime. The
thought, however, that weighed most with me against my natural feeling
was an experience to which none present could appeal. I had sat on
many courts-martial where cowardice was the only charge imputed; and
in every case in which that charge was proved, sentence of death had
been passed and carried out on a ground I could not refuse to consider
sufficient:--namely, that the infection of terror can best be
repressed by an example inspiring deeper terror than that to which the
prisoner has yielded. Compelled by these precedents, though with
intense reluctance, I submitted at last to the universal judgment.
Esmo having collected the will, I cannot say the voices, of the
assembly, paused for a minute in silence.

"The Present has pronounced," he said at last. "Are the voices of the
Past assentient?"

He looked around as if to see whether, under real or supposed
inspiration, any of those before him would give in another name a
judgment opposite to that in which all had concurred. Instinctively I
glanced towards the Throne, but it remained vacant as ever. Then,
fixing his eyes for a few moments upon the culprit, who started and
woke to full consciousness under his gaze--and receiving from the
Chief nearest to him on the left a chain of small golden circles
similar to that of the canopy, represented also on the Signet, while
he on the right held a small roll, on the golden surface of which a
long list of names was inscribed--our Superior pronounced, amid
deepest stillness, in a low clear tone, the form of excommunication;
breaking at the appropriate moment one link from the chain, and, at a
later point, drawing a broad crimson bar through one cipher on the
roll:--

"Conscience-convict, tried in truth,
Judged in justice, doomed in ruth;
Ours no more--once ours in vain--
Falls the Veil and snaps the Chain,
Drops the link and lies alone:--
Traitor to the Emerald Throne,
Alien from the troth we plight,
Kature native to the night;
Trained in Light the Light to scorn,
Soul apostate and forsworn,
False to symbol, sense, and sign,
To the Serpent's pledge divine,
To the Wings that reach afar,
To the Circle and the Star;
Recreant to the mystic rule,
Outlaw from the sacred school--
Backward is the Threshold crossed;
Lost the Light, the Life is lost.