As he faced his, judges now he met the smouldering eyes of Sir Terence considering him with such malevolence that he was shocked and bewildered.

Was he prejudged already, and by his best friend?
If so, what must be the attitude of the others?
But the kindly, florid countenance of the president was friendly and encouraging; there was eager anxiety for him in the gaze of his friend Caruthers.

He glanced at Lord Wellington sitting at the table's end sternly inscrutable, a mere spectator, yet one whose habit of command gave him an air that was authoritative and judicial.
At length he began to speak.

He had considered his defence, and he had based it mainly upon a falsehood--since the strict truth must have proved ruinous to Richard Butler.
"My answer, gentlemen," he said, "will be a very brief one as brief, indeed, as the prosecution merits--for I entertain the hope that no member of this court is satisfied that the case made out against me is by any means complete." He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly: a man supremely self-controlled.

"It amounts, indeed, to throwing upon me the onus of proving myself innocent, and that is a burden which no British laws, civil or miliary, would ever commit the injustice of imposing upon an accused.
"That certain words of disagreement passed between Count Samoval and myself on the eve of the affair in which the Count met his death, as you have heard from various witnesses, I at once and freely admitted.
Thereby I saved the court time and trouble, and some other witnesses who might have been caused the distress of having to testify against me.
But that the dispute ever had any sequel, that the further subsequent discussion threatened at the time by Count Samoval ever took place, I most solemnly deny.