The able and bigoted sceptics, who
prosecuted this day in the interests of science, insisted, with equal
inconsistency and equal skill, on the innumerable recorded and
attested instances of some diabolical power possessed by certain
supposed members of a detested and malignant sect. A year ago the
judges would probably have sided unanimously with the former. But the
feeling that animated the conspiracy, if it should be so called,
against the Zinta, had penetrated all Martial society; and in order to
destroy the votaries of religion, Science, in the persons of her most
distinguished students, was this day ready to abjure her character,
and forswear her most cherished tenets. As has often happened in Mars,
and may one day happen on Earth as the new ideas come into greater
force, proven fact was deliberately set against logical impossibility;
and for once--what probably had not happened in Mars for ten thousand
years--proven fact and common sense carried the day against science
and "universal experience;" but, unhappily, against the prisoner.
After retiring separately for about an hour, the Judges returned.
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