Who, they urged, was to know in that half-light whether I had or had not actually attempted to run for my life, or to threaten their lives, circumstances under which the law said it was justifiable to shoot a prisoner already formally condemned to death?
To this black counsel they all agreed, being so terribly afraid of a poor English lad whose existence, although most of them did not know this, was to be taken from him upon false evidence.

But then arose another question: By whose hand should the thing be done?
Not one of them, it would seem, was anxious to fulfil this bloody office; indeed, they one and all refused to do so.

A proposal was put forward that some of their native servants should be forced to serve as executioners; but when this had been vetoed by the general sense of the court, their counsels came to a deadlock.
Then, after a whispered conference, the commandant spoke some dreadful words.
"Hernando Pereira and Henri Marais," he said, "it is on your evidence that this young man has been condemned.

We believe that evidence, but if by one jot or one tittle it is false, then not justice, but a foul murder will have been committed and his innocent blood will be upon your heads for ever.

Hernando Pereira and Henri Marais, the court appoints you to be the guards who will bring the prisoner out of his house to-morrow morning just when the sky begins to lighten.