Part 16 (1/2)

'Why can't you answer when the Queen asks you a question, eh?' demanded Archie. 'No, she won't say a word; she'll only grin at you; you see she's quite hardened. There's only one thing that would make her confess,' he added cautiously, aware that he was on rather delicate ground, 'and that's the torture. I could make a beautiful rack, Winnie, if you didn't mind?'

'Whatever she's done,' said the Queen, firmly, 'I'm not going to have her tortured! And I believe she's sorry inside and wants me to forgive her!'

'Then why doesn't she say so?' said Archie. 'No, no, Winnie. Look here, this is a serious thing, you know; it won't do to pa.s.s it over; it's high treason, and she'll have to be tried.'

'But I don't want her tried,' said Winifred.

'Oh, very well then; I had better go downstairs again and read. The best part was all coming, but if you don't care, I'm sure _I_ don't!'

'Little idiot!' thought Ethelinda angrily, 'she'll spoil the whole thing; every heroine has to be tried!'

But Winnie gave in, as she usually did, to Archie. 'Well, then, she shall be tried if you really think she ought to be, Archie; it won't hurt her though, will it?'

'Of course it won't; it's all right. Now for the trial: here's the court, and here's a place for the judge' (he built it all up with books and bricks as he spoke); 'here's the dock--stick Lady What's-her-name inside--that's it. We must do without a jury, but I suppose we _ought_ to have a judge; oh, this fellow will do for judge!'

And he seized the jester and raised him to the Bench at once. The jester was more puzzled than ever. 'Now I'm a _judge_,' he thought, 'I shall have to try her; but I'm glad of it--I'll let her off!'

But unluckily he very soon found that he had no voice at all in the matter, except what Archie chose to lend him.

'Oh, but Archie,' said Winifred, who was determined to defeat the ends of justice if she possibly could, 'can a jester be a judge?'

'Why not?' said Archie; 'judges make jokes sometimes--I've heard papa say so, and he's a barrister, and ought to know.'

'But this one doesn't make real jokes!' persisted Winifred.

'Who asked him to? Judges are not obliged to make jokes, Winnie. I believe you are trying to get her off, but I'm going to see justice done, I tell you. So now then, Lady Ethelinda, you are charged with high treason and trying to poison Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Winifred Gladys Robertson, by putting a.r.s.enic in Her Majesty's tea. Guilty or not guilty! Speak up!'

'_Not_ guilty!' put in Winifred quickly, thinking that would settle the whole trial comfortably. 'There, Archie, you can't say she didn't speak _that_ time!'

'Now, you have done it!' Archie said triumphantly. 'If she'd confessed, we might have shown mercy. Now we shall have to prove it, and if we do I'm sorry for her, that's all!'

'If she says ”Guilty, and she won't do it again!”' suggested Winifred.

'It's too late for that now,' said Archie, who was not going to have his trial cut short in that way: 'no, we must prove it.'

'But how are you going to prove it?'

'You wait. I've been in court once or twice with papa, and seen him prove all sorts of things. First, we must have in the fellow who sold the poison--the apothecary, you know. Oh, I say, though, I forgot that--he's the judge; that won't do!'

'Then you can't prove it after all--I'm so glad!' cried the Queen, with her eyes sparkling.

'One would think you rather liked being poisoned,' said Archie, in an offended tone.

'I like magnesia, and it isn't poison, really--it's medicine.'

'It isn't magnesia now; it's a.r.s.enic; and she shan't get off like this.

I'll call the apothecary's young man, he'll prove it (this brick is the apothecary's young man). There, he says it's all right; she did it right enough. Now for the sentence! (put a penwiper on the judge's head, will you, Winnie; it's solemner).'

'What's a sentence?' asked Winifred, much disturbed at these ill-omened arrangements.