Page 227 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

THE LAST SCENE OF ALL 227

ent with the settled belief with which the judges had from
the first pursued the investigations. Dc Bruyne, to follow
the Dutch record, “ stated his suit and drew his conclu­
sion.” It is almost unnecessary to say what that conclusion
was. The Fiscal was an apt tool of an infamous system
imder which men could be done to death with due judicial
forms. Torquemada was not more indefatigable in scent­
ing out a heretic than De Bruyne was in discovering
a conspirator. To his own satisfaction he brought
home guilt to all the prisoners save four of the least im­
portant of them, viz., Powle, Ramsey, Sadler and Lad-
brook. It now only remained for the Court to pass sen­
tence. Before this was done, we are told, “ prayers were
said to the Lord that He might govern their (the Council’s)
hearts in this gloomy consultation and that He might
inspire them only with equity and justice ”—hollow words
after such “ equity and justice ” as had been dealt out to
the unfortunate prisoners.
With quivering lips and blenched faces Towerson and
his companions listened to the declaration which sealed
their fate. Towerson himself was condemned to be
decapitated and quartered, and his head to be hung on a
post as a warning to other , evil-doers. His fellow captives
were sentenced to simple decapitation. In every instance
the victim’s private property was ordered to be confis­
cated—an idle injunction, for the poor fellows had so
little to leave that the Dutch were afterwards content that
the surviving English should divide their hapless comrades*
possessions amongst themselves.
Before the prisoners were removed, it occurred to the
Council that the wholesale execution of the English would
give rise to inconvenience by throwing upon them the

. _