e Zinta
at his several post had received, through that strange symbolic
language of which I have already given samples, from me advice of what
had occurred and from Esmo warning to meet at an appointed place and
time.

The day at whose close we should meet was that of Davilo's trial. I
mingled with the crowd around the Court doors, a crowd manifesting
bitter hostility to the prisoner and to the Order, of whose secrets a
revelation was eagerly expected. Easily forcing my way through the
mass, I felt on a sudden a touch, a sign; and turning my eyes saw a
face I had surely never looked on before. Yet the sign could only have
been given by a colleague. That which followed implied the presence of
the Signet itself.

"I told you," whispered a voice I knew well, "how completely we can
change even countenance at will."

It was so; but though acquainted with the process, I had never
believed that the change could be so absolute. By help of my strength
and height, still more perhaps by the subtle influence of his own
powerful will acting none the less imperiously on minds unconscious of
its influence, Esmo made his way with me into the Court.

Around five sides of the hexagon were seats, tier above tier,
appropriated to the public who wish to see as well as hear. The
phonograph reported every word uttered to hundreds of distant offices.
Against the sixth side were placed the seats of the seven judges; in
front, at an equal elevation, the chair of the prisoner, the seats of
the advocates on right and left, and the place from which each witness
must deliver his testimony in full view and within easy hearing both
of the bench, the bar, and the audience. Davilo sat in his chair
unguarded, but in an attitude strangely constrained and motionless.
Only his bright eyes moved freely, and his head turned a little from
side to side. He recognised us instantly, and his look expressed no
trace of fear.

"The _quarry_" whispered Esmo, observing my perplexity.

"It paralyses the nerves of motion, leaving those of sensation active;
and is administered to a prisoner on the instant of his arrest, so as
to keep him absolutely helpless till his sentence is executed, or till
on his acquittal an antidote is administered."

The counsel for the prosecution stated in the briefest possible words
the story of Astona, from the moment when she left my house to that at
which she was found dead, and the method of her death; related
Davilo's words, an