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p.m. with its verdict:
    â€˜GUILTY, with a strong recommendation to mercy . . .’
    Donald did not hear all the words.
    â€˜. . . not responsible for his actions . . . suffering . . . from a craze . . . his intense hatred . . . mixing of British and alien races.’
    The registrar asked Terry if he had anything to say. WAs there any reason why he should not receive the death sentence?
    Terry stood very tall and straight, his voice strong and clear. ‘Nothing except to repeat what I said formerly, that my action was a right and justifiable action.’
    â€˜Prisoner Lionel Terry,’ the Chief Justice said, ‘the recommendation of the jury will be duly forwarded to his Excellency, the Governor . . . The sentence of the Court is that you be taken . . . to His Majesty’s prison at Wellington, and thence to the place of execution,’ Donald broke the lead of his pencil on his pad, ‘and there be hanged by the neck till you be dead . . . may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’
    A hush fell on the court. All eyes were directed at Terry, who stood very still, his blue eyes calm.
    Donald watched as Terry was led out. He sat in his seat as others leapt up and chatted excitedly. He would write about his friend – how he’d held the court spellbound by his oratory, how he’d risked all for the honour of his race, how he’d stood clear-eyed and erect, a knight errant lifted from the pages of chivalry.

No Contínents or Seas
    Katherine watched helplessly as Robbie lived and breathed Lionel Terry. His father talked through his reports even before he published. ‘What do you think, Robbie? Enough drama for you?’
    Robbie wanted to sign the petition that ran throughout the country, but his father said, ‘When you’re older, son, you’ll have your turn.’
    Donald tried to get Katherine to sign. It was the only time she remembered him swearing at her. She could feel every movement of her body, the heaviness of her arms, her legs, as she turned her back and walked out of the room. She could feel herself quivering, could feel his eyes burning at the back of her neck. The blackness of his rage, his stunned disbelief.
    The petition collected thousands of names, but in the end it wasn’t needed. The Government had already decided: Terry’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
    Father and son tracked Terry’s progress from Wellington Gaol to Lyttelton, from Lyttelton Gaol to Sunnyside (mental hospital, indeed! – the papers didn’t say lunatic asylum any more), from the madhouse to his escapes into the countryside. Donald and Robbie told each other stories, embellishing them more and more with each telling – why, you’d think he was some modern-day Robin Hood, the way people talked, the way they helped him.
    â€˜Terry’s adventures certainly add spice to the paper,’ Donald said as he poured more whisky. ‘We could run a series of cartoons, Robbie. Terry swimming the Waimakariri. Terry in the abandoned hut at Burnt Hill eating raw vegetables and grasses . . .’
    So they weren’t Chinamen’s vegetables, Katherine thought.
    They were all sitting in the parlour, Edie reading a book, Katherine mending yet another hole in Robbie’s sock. This one didn’t deserve the name ‘sock’. More a mass of darning held together by wool scrap. Why couldn’t Donald give her more money?
    â€˜How about a cartoon of the man in Oxford giving him his handkerchief and check cap with the caption – Good on you, Terry. Keep up the good work . . .’
    Damn. Katherine sucked her finger where she’d pricked it with the needle.
    â€˜We could have Terry lecturing about the alien problem before the crowd at Sheffield . . . Sure they caught him in the end, carted him back to Sunnyside, but you can’t keep a good man down. I hear