, and the benches full of interested
spectators. I gave my evidence and was examined by the Counsels for the
prosecution and for the defence. I described how I had traced the men
from England to their hiding-place abroad, and the various attempts that
had been made to prevent their extradition, and had just referred to a
certain statement one of the prisoners had made to me soon after his
arrest, when an interruption caused me to look behind at the rows of
spectators. At the further end of the bench, nearest me, were two men;
one was evidently tall, the other very short. The taller was the
possessor of silvery white hair and a long and venerable beard. He was a
handsome looking man of about forty, and my first glance at him told me
that he was blind. As I have said, his companion was a much smaller man,
with a smooth, almost boyish face, a pair of twinkling eyes, but a mouth
rather hard set. Both were evidently following the case closely, and
when on the next day I saw that they were in the same place, I took an
even greater interest in them than before. It was not however until the
trial had finished and the pair of miserable men had been sent to penal
servitude for a lengthy term of years, that I made the acquaintance of
the men I have just described. I remember the circumstance quite
distinctly. I had left the Court and was proceeding down the Old Bailey
in the direction of Ludgate Hill, when I heard my name pronounced.

Turning round I discovered to my astonishment the two men I had seen in
the Court, and who had seemed to take such an interest in the case. The
smaller was guiding his friend along the crowded pavement with a
dexterity that was plainly the outcome of a long practice. When I
stopped, they stopped also, and the blind man addressed me. His voice
was deep and had a note of pathos in it impossible to describe. It may
have been that I was a little sad that afternoon, for both the men who
had been condemned to penal servitude had wives and children, to whose
pitiful condition the learned Judge had referred when passing sentence.

"You are Mr. Fairfax, are you not?" inquired the taller of the men.

"That is my name," I admitted. "What can I do for you?"

"If we could persuade you to vouchsafe us an hour of your valuable time
we should be more grateful than we could say," the man replied. "We have
an important piece of business which it might possibly be to your
advantage to take up. At any rate it would be