What did you want him
to do that for?"
"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save him all this
cruel pain."
"Well--yes, there is reason in that. But _he_ didn't want the
quick death."
"He? Why, of a surety he _did_."
"Well, then, why in the world _didn't_ he confess?"
"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick without bread and shelter?"
"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law takes the convicted
man's estate and beggars his widow and his orphans. They could
torture you to death, but without conviction or confession they
could not rob your wife and baby. You stood by them like a man;
and _you_--true wife and the woman that you are--you would have
bought him release from torture at cost to yourself of slow
starvation and death--well, it humbles a body to think what your
sex can do when it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll book you both
for my colony; you'll like it there; it's a Factory where I'm going
to turn groping and grubbing automata into _men_."
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE QUEEN'S DUNGEONS
Well, I arranged all that; and I had the man sent to his home.
I had a great desire to rack the executioner; not because he was
a good, painstaking and paingiving official,--for surely it was
not to his discredit that he performed his functions well--but to
pay him back for wantonly cuffing and otherwise distressing that
young woman.
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