The Serjeant, ready with his reply, appeared.

"Mors rei homagium est bonæ legi."

And while you feel yourself dying miserably," resumed the sheriff, "no

one will attend to you, even when the blood rushes from your throat,

your chin, and your armpits, and every pore, from the mouth to the

loins."

"A throtabolla," said the Serjeant, "et pabu et subhircis et a

grugno usque ad crupponum."

The sheriff continued,--

"Man, attend to me, because the consequences concern you. If you

renounce your execrable silence, and if you confess, you will only be

hanged, and you will have a right to the meldefeoh, which is a sum of

money."

Damnum confitens," said the Serjeant, "habeat le meldefeoh. Leges

Inæ, chapter the twentieth."

Which sum," insisted the sheriff, "shall be paid in doitkins, suskins,

and galihalpens, the only case in which this money is to pass, according

to the terms of the statute of abolition, in the third of Henry V., and

you will have the right and enjoyment of scortum ante mortem, and then

be hanged on the gibbet. Such are the advantages of confession. Does it

615

The Man Who Laughs