The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 180: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WITNESSES. 159 too monstrous for belief. That I, so proudly placed, should have condescended to such folly, is repugnant to your Majesty’s good sense. You see, Queen Indora, that I am addressing you with the respect that is due to your sex and to your rank. But let me warn your Majesty that it is no light deed on your part to adopt all these proceedings against an Englishman, however humble his rank might be; but when you reflect what I am, what my rank is, and that I am even exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals of my country, and if accused of misdeeds, can be tried only by my peers, you cannot shut out from yourself the fact that you have taken a most serious step in subjecting me to an ordeal which can end in nought. Therefore I demand that your Majesty at once restores me to that freedom which these myrmidons of yours ’’ — and he glanced toward the Hindus — “ have so grossly violated.” _ As the reader may suppose, it cost the Duke of March- mont no mean effort to maintain the demeanour which cor- responded with the language that thus flowed from his lips,. and which was so completely at variance with that inward consciousness of a thousand crimes that he experienced, but it was still by the very desperation of his circumstances that he was supported, and he was in a condition of the most. awful suspense as to what might be coming next. Queen Indora listened to him with all that calm attention which. a righteous judge bestows upon a captive who is accused. There was nothing, however, in her look or bearing to indi- cate that his words had produced any effect upon her, either to make her think less than beforehand of the amount of evidence brought to bear against him, or to feel uneasy at the responsibility of the position in which she had placed herself. The Duke of Marchmont anxiously and eagerly watched to see what the effect of his speech might be, and more deeply sank his heart within him while he noticed how coldly firm and resolutely imperturbable were Queen Indo- ra’s looks. And then, too, the door of that inner chamber still stood half-open, and the strong light was still shining forth, and there was a secret voice within the duke’s guilty soul telling him that what he thus observed related to some fresh phase in the proceedings that were now in prog- ress, but what it might be he could not possibly conjecture. “I have heard you with attention, prisoner,” said the CORE Oe SS) (S@)