THE PRISONERS PREPARE TO DIE 127 of the book, at the beginning of the Psalms, he de- clared: " As I mean and hope to have pardon for my sins, I know no more than the child unborn of this business/' These statements were written three or four days before the execution of the death sentence, as " March 5, stilo novo," would correspond to Febru- ary 23d, if we take the English dates. On February 26th (English date) the prisoners were brought into the hall of the castle to be prepared for death. Captain Towerson was taken into the torture- chamber with " two great jars of water carried after him. What he there did or suffered is unknown to the English without, but it seemeth they made him then to underwrite his confession "— a confession of a plot so wild that, had it ever entered a man's brain, " he should," in the words of the English Company, " rather have been sent to bedlam . . . than to the gallows." The condemned men still protested their innocence. " Samuel Colson spake with a loud voice saying, Ac- cording to my innocency in this treason, so Lord par- don all the rest of my sins; and if I be guilty thereof more or less, let me never be partaker of Thy heavenly joys. At which words every one of the rest cried Amen for me, Amen for me, good Lord. This done, each of them knowing whom he had accused, went one to an- other begging forgiveness for their false accusation," under the torture; " and they all freely forgave one another, for none had been so falsely accused, but he himself had accused another as falsely." Their last " doleful night they spent in prayer, singing of psalms
