the time that another witness had asserted his presence in Melbourne in complicity with the secret society. . . . . Such is the nature of the evidence before you, Gentlemen of the Jury, and I charge you to consider it well, that you may deal justly with the accused, not convicting them if you think any uncertainty exists concerning the guilt alleged against them, but giving them an impartial and honorable acquittal by a verdict of ‘Not Guilty;’ and, on the other hand, if the evidence seems to you conclusive proof of their guilt, that you bring in the only verdict possible under the circumstances,—the verdict which shall cause these wretched men to suffer the extreme penalty of the law—the verdict of ‘Guilty’!”
The jury retired for a few minutes, and a painful suspense was felt all through the court while the fatal verdict was waited for. After about fifteen minutes the jury reappeared; and the foreman, his voice trembling with emotion, reported their decision as follows:—“We find the prisoners, Thomas Treadway, Harry Holdfast, Samuel Sharples, Thomas Smith, Frederick Thompson, Thomas Harrison, William Spencer, James Grace, Alfred Jackson, Michael O'Halloran, Phillip Williams, Joseph Marks, William Wilson, Adolph Nortier, Henry White, Rupert Blackman, Edwin Christopherson, Patrick Murphy, and Phelim O'Dowd guilty of wilful murder; but we recommend Thomas Treadway and Harry Holdfast to mercy on account of the inconclusive nature of some of the evidence brought against them.”
The judge was not long in passing the fatal sentences. With a few well chosen words, warning them of the awful fate that awaited them, he condemned Tom Treadway and Harry Holdfast to imprisonment for life; the others he sentenced to death.
There was a sigh of relief, and all eyes were turned towards the prisoners, some of whom broke down with grief at the awful sentence; though most of them retained their composure and prepared to meet their doom as only martyrs in a glorious cause can do. There was, however, a feeling of dissatisfaction on the brows of Treadway and Holdfast, who begged to be “murdered” along with their comrades rather than rot to death in a prison cell. But their request was unheeded. All the prisoners were hastily removed, and the court cleared. Immediately on the sentence being made known outside the court, loud groans were heard; the faces of the multitude were sullen and angered. It was threatened that if the men's lives were to be forfeited an attempt would he made to liberate them and to destroy the judge and every juryman and witness who had gone against them. And now the terrible hour had arrived. Now the fatal blow was to be struck, and Melbourne was to reek with blood, and a “Cæsar's Column” to be played in grim reality!
VIII.
In the front room of a small brick cottage in Carlton, a number of men and women were gathered together, talking earnestly over the great trial of the Melbourne Rioters, with an earnestness and an intimacy with the
