Dense as had been the throng that filled the court on the earlier hearing, the throng was now even yet more dense.  The benches usually provided for the public had been removed, and spectators stood on every inch of the floor.  Some crept up to the windows, and climbed on to the window boards.  One or two daring souls clambered over the shoulders of their fellows to the principals of the roof, and sat perched across them.  The old court house was paved and walled with people.

From the entrance at the western end the occupants of the seats before the table filed in one by one.  The first to come was the sheriff, Wilfrey Lawson.  With papers in hand, he stationed himself immediately under the jurors’ box and facing the bar.  Then came the clerk of the court, who was making an ostentatious display of familiarity with counsel for the King, who walked half a pace behind him.

The judges took their seats.  As they entered, the gentleman of the rubicund complexion was chatting in a facetious vein with his brother judge, who, however, relaxed but little of the settled austerity of his countenance under the fire of many jests.

Silence was commanded, and Ralph Ray was ordered to the bar.  He had scarcely taken his place there when the name of Simeon Stagg was also called.  For an instant Ralph looked amazed.  The sheriff observed his astonishment and smiled.  The next moment Sim was by his side.  His face was haggard; his long gray-and-black hair hung over his temples.  He was led in.  He clutched feverishly at the rail in front.  He had not yet lifted his eyes.  After a moment he raised them, and met the eyes of Ralph turned towards him.  Then he shuffled and sidled up to Ralph’s elbow.  The people stretched their necks to see the unexpected prisoner.

After many preliminary formalities it was announced that the grand jury had found a true bill for murder against the two prisoners.

The indictment was read.  It charged Ralph Ray and Simeon Stagg with having murdered with malice aforethought James Wilson, agent to the King’s counsel.

The prisoners were told to plead.  Ralph answered promptly and in a clear tone, “Not Guilty.”  Sim hesitated, looked confused, stammered, lifted his eyes as if inquiringly to Ralph’s face, then muttered indistinctly, “Not Guilty.”

The judges exchanged glances.  The clerk, with a sneer on his lip, mumbled something to counsel.  The spectators turned with a slight bustle among themselves.  Their pleas had gone against the prisoners—­at least against Ralph.

When the men at the bar were asked how they would be tried, Ralph turned to the bench and said he had been kept close prisoner for seven days, none having access to him.  Was he to be called to trial, not knowing the charge against him until he was ordered to the bar?

No attention was paid to his complaint, and the jury was empanelled.  Then counsel rose, and with the customary circumlocution opened the case against the prisoners.  In the first place, he undertook to indicate the motive and occasion of the horrid, vile, and barbarous crime which had been committed, and which, he declared, scarce anything in the annals of justice could parallel; then, he would set forth the circumstances under which the act was perpetrated; and, finally, he proposed to show what grounds existed for inferring that the prisoners were guilty thereof.