Page 232 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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232 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

them many islanders from without, men who had known
and fought with Courthope and with whose pity mingled a I
fierce feeling of anger and bitter disappointment at the era
of hopeless subjection which the approaching execution
seemed so inexorably to usher in.
Meanwhile, in the great hall of the castle all the pris­
oners were assembled for the grim pageantry which was to
precede the final awful rites. At the door of the chamber
were " the quit and pardoned,” to whom with streaming
eyes and broken voices the prisoners tendered their last
farewells. Standing now on the threshold of the other !
world the condemned once more affirmed their innocence,
and solemnly charged their more fortunate colleagues “ to
bear witnesse to their friends in England . . . that they
i
died not traitors, but so many innocents merely murdered
by the Hollanders, whome they prayed God to forgive their
blood-thirstinesse and to have mercy upon their own
soules.”
On one side of the hall, curious spectators of this fare­
- well scene, were the Japanese prisoners, who with the
stolidity of their race stood quietly awaiting their doom.
When the English prisoners were brought near to them the
Japanese in terms of mingled surprise and reproach said—
(<«
0 you Englishmen, where did wee ever in our lives
eat with you, talk with you, or (to our remembrance)
see you ? ’
“ The Englishmen replied: * Why, then, have you
accused us ? J 5>
Then, says the record, “ The poore men, perceiving
they were made believe each had accused others before
they had so done, indeed, showed them their tortured
bodies and said—