Yonder stands the enemy of his country, who
intrigued to help my mother to escape; here stands the patriot
son, whose voice was the first, the only voice, to denounce him
for the crime!" As he spoke, he pointed to Trudaine, then struck
himself on the breast, then folded his arms, and looked sternly
at the benches occupied by the spectators.
"Do you assert," exclaimed the president, "that at the time when
you denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your
mother's escape?"
"I assert it," answered Danville.
The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that
reply; his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank
silence.
A murmur of "Monster! monster!" began with the prisoners on the
platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and
echoed it again; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches
joined cause at last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the
platform. Even in that sphere of direst discords, in that age of
sharpest enmities, the one touch of Nature preserved its old
eternal virtue, and roused the mother-instinct which makes the
whole world kin.
Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of
Danville's answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was
one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners'
platform.
"They are lost," he murmured to himself, moving out of the group
in which he had hitherto stood.
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