CHAPTER X.THEIR OWN PETARD.
In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which promised to be of so vast importance.

The three sat at a long table at the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their hands pinioned behind them--Blake's arm was healed by now--stood Mr.
Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was very fearful--having through his connection with the Cause every reason so to be.

Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau.

A black-visaged gentleman was Christopher Monk.

His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister.