ice of my betrayal. But I am done. Your tyranny and oppression
cannot last for ever. The compressed spring will at last recoil with
power proportionate to the force by which it has been restrained--and
freed posterity will avenge on a future tyrant my cruel and unnatural
murder."

Hansford sat down, and Sir William Berkeley, flushed with indignation,
replied,

"I had hoped that the near approach of death, if not a higher motive,
would have saved us from such treasonable sentiments. But, sir, the
insolence of your manner has checked any sympathy which I might have
entertained for your early fate. I, therefore, have only to pronounce
the judgment of the court; that you be taken to the place whence you
came, and there safely kept until to-morrow noon, when you will be
taken, with a rope about your neck, to the common gallows, and there
hung by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord Jesus Christ have
mercy on your soul!"

"Amen!" was murmured, in sad whispers, by the hundreds of pale
spectators who crowded around the unhappy prisoner.

"How is this!" cried Hansford, once more rising to his feet, with strong
emotion. "Gentlemen, you are soldiers, as such I may claim you as
brethren, as such you should be brave and generous men. On that
generosity, in this hour of peril, I throw myself, and ask as a last
indulgence, as a dying favour, that I may die the death of a soldier,
and not of a felon."

"You have lived a traitor's, not a soldier's life," said Berkeley, in an
insulting tone. "A soldier's life is devoted to his king and country;
yours to a rebel and to treason. You shall die the death of a traitor."

"Well, then, I have done," said Hansford, with a sigh, "and must look to
Him alone for mercy, who can make the felon's gallows as bright a
pathway to happiness, as the field of glory."

Many a cheek flushed with indignation at the refusal of the governor to
grant this last petition of a brave man. A murmur of dissatisfaction
arose from the crowd, and even some sturdy loyalists were heard to
mutter, "shame." The other members of the court were seen to confer
together, and to remonstrate with the governor.

"'Fore God, no," said Berkeley, in a whisper to his advisers. "Think of
the precedent it will establish. Traitor he has lived, and as far as my
voice can go, traitor he shall die. I suppose the sheep-killing hound,
and the egg-sucking cur, will next whine out their request to be shot
instead of hung."

S