OYEZ! OYEZ!
"This is the gravest charge known to the law," said the district
attorney, "and the man found guilty of it by a jury of his peers is
condemned, under the statutes of this commonwealth, to be hanged by the
neck until he is dead."
Dead! The solemn word reverberated through every listener's heart. The
crowded court-room was hushed. The jurymen had just been contemplating
their own portraits in the last newspaper which they would see for many
days, and now bent forward in the first flush of eager attention. Court
officers were carrying whispered messages to and fro. On the bench sat
Chief Justice Playfair, silver-haired and handsome, between two of his
judicial brethren. The case was considered of such importance that
three judges had been assigned to decide upon the legal questions which
might arise.
On the threshold of an ante-room Inspector McCausland was cordially
shaking hands with Shagarach. In the front row of the spectators sat
Mrs. Arnold, thin-lipped and cold, beside a sad-faced woman in black.
She had bowed distantly to the prisoner--no longer fettered, but
permitted to occupy a seat in the "cage" in full view--between Dr.
Silsby and Emily Barlow, who had bravely elected to join him. Evidently
he was not one of those who grow plump on jail regime and batten under
the shadow of the scaffold. The young man's dark cheek was lean, his
eyes unwontedly bright, but he never flinched from the district
attorney's gaze.
"You have learned from the reading of the indictment," thundered the
district attorney, stroking his patriarchal beard with one hand and
holding his notes in the other, "that the immediate act committed by the
accused was not murder but arson. It is true that he did not
deliberately procure the deaths of the seven persons who were deprived
of their most precious property, of life itself, in that calamity with
which our city rung on the evening of June 28. He did not draw their
blood personally with the usual weapons of homicide--pistol, dagger,
bludgeon or ax. But the evidence will show you that a new weapon, more
dangerous, because more deadly, than any of these, was used on this
occasion, and that he set on foot forces which did procure the deaths of
the victims, and which, but for the vigilance of man and the mercy of
Providence, might have doubled or trebled their number--yes, laid the
greater part of our fair city in ruins.
"For myself, I might be willing to suppose that the accused did not
foresee the consequences which would follow his rash deed; that he
trusted to a confined and local destruction, of property merely,
following his application of the match to his deceased uncle's study.
But the law, justly and wisely, we must admit, presumes foresight,
imputes deliberation and malice, when loss of life follows the
commission of a felony, and taxes the felon not alone with the initial
damage but with all damages that accrue. I leave it to your own good
sense, gentlemen, whether the fire-fiend who applies the torch in the
heart of a crowded city is not potentially as guilty as the Malay
running amuck with brandished dagger or the anarchist hurling his bomb.
There can be only one answer to the question. Our own lives, the lives
of our wives, sisters, children, are imperiled by any other doctrine
than that which the law lays down.
"Therefore, reluctantly, sorrowfully, with misgivings and fear, we have
impeached Robert Floyd of the murder of Ellen Greeley, who was burned to
death in her chamber; of Rosanna Moxom, Katie Galuby, Mary Lacy and
Florence F. Lacy, who died of injuries received while attempting to
escape from the Harmon building; of Alexander Whitlove, who was caught
between the floors of that building, in a heroic attempt to conduct his
elevator to the imprisoned occupants of the upper story; and of Peter
Schubert, the fireman who lost his life nobly in the performance of his
duty."
This catalogue of the victims moved the spectators, and Emily noticed
the woman in black crying softly in her handkerchief.
"I will not attempt to instruct your consciences or call to your minds
the responsibility which rests upon your shoulders as well as upon mine.
For I am convinced that every man before me approaches this case with
the same unwillingness which I myself have felt, but also with the same
determination to uphold the law, to do justice and nothing more or less
than justice, to all parties, that I myself have formed."
The district attorney spoke this disclaimer of officiousness or
persecution with genuine feeling, but it was scarcely necessary for any
who knew him. The name of Noah Bigelow, like that of Shagarach, was
guaranty in itself that the cause would be tried with courtesy and
fairness. Yet something in his bearing might have told the psychologist
that the nature of the man, unsuspicious, candid and slow to entertain a
conviction of guilt, would be equally slow to part with such a
conviction when it had once obtained a lodging.
The outline of the evidence to be presented consumed more than an hour
in its delivery; and the reading, in a high drawl, of the minutes of the
previous trial, occupied the remaining time until the noon recess
tediously. If the jury had not been provided with a typewritten copy it
would have profited little by this latter proceeding.