Page 233 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

THE LAST SCENE OF ALL 233
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If a stone were thus burnt, would it not change his
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nature ? How much more we that are flesh and blood ?
To such reasoning there could be no reply. The Eng­
lish prisoners had tasted too deeply the bitter pangs of the
torture chamber, had themselves offended too much against
truth under the infernal stimulus applied, to be able to
raise their voices in censure. So with friendly words of I
farewell they passed on.
£
Outside the hall was an open space, overlooked by the !
windows of the castle, and a kind of gallery communicating
with the official quarters. When all the prisoners had been
collected at this point an official appeared in the gallery
'
and read out in due form the sentence which had been
passed by the Council. Thereafter a procession was i
formed to conduct the prisoners to the scaffold. From
motives of policy, doubtless, the route taken was a long
and circuitous one which led through the town. Escorted by
a strong military guard the melancholy cortege slowly made
its way through lines of soldiery to the execution ground.
In their last moments the condemned Englishmen
showed themselves worthy of their race. Armed with the
consciousness of innocence and strengthened spiritually by
their night of devotion, they looked composedly outwards
towards the unseen. Coulson, now, as ever, a leader,
!
drew from his breast a paper on which he had written a
prayer suitable to the occasion with, at its conclusion,
a strong declaration of innocence. In a loud, firm voice
which penetrated far in the still morning air he read the
simple sentences in which, on behalf of himself and his
fellow-prisoners, he invoked the favour of the Deity in
this awful crisis. When the final words of supplication
had died away he cast the paper into the air, it fluttered