THE SECOND DAY OF THE TRIAL.
It was a kind Providence which kept Paul in his numb and dazed condition
and made him eat the supper Mrs. Stevens brought him with a keen relish,
and afterwards wrapped him in a sleep so profound that he did not waken
until the jailer knocked at his door and told him his breakfast was
waiting. He had fallen asleep the moment his head touched the pillow,
his last thought a confused one of the man they were trying and in whose
fate he was interested. He was not that man when he went to sleep; he
was Paul Ralston, the people’s favorite,—Clarice Percy’s affianced
husband, and, if he dreamed at all, it was of the bridal festivities,
commenced on so gigantic a scale. When he awoke, refreshed by his long
sleep, the pain was gone from his head, leaving him only a little dizzy,
but with full knowledge of what lay before him and who he was.
He was Paul Ralston still, but a prisoner charged with killing Jack
Percy,—the man they had sworn against the day before, and against whom
Elithe was to swear to-day. His breakfast went away untouched, and his
stoop was more perceptible, his eyes more hollow, and his face whiter
when he was driven again through the crowded streets and saw the people
hurrying to the Court House, some with lunch-boxes and baskets, showing
that they meant to sit through the recess and not run the risk of losing
their seats if they were so fortunate as to get one.
Again the house was packed. Again the twelve jurors were in their
places, with the judge and attorneys, those for the defense and those
for the prosecution, with the prosecuting attorney bustling about,
nervous and excited, and speaking once to Miss Hansford, who scowled at
him with a look through her “near-see-ers,” worn on the end of her nose,
not very re-assuring. She had never had a great deal of respect for him,
and had less now, when he was arrayed against Paul Ralston, with a right
to ask her whatever he chose. He knew this and had confessed himself a
little afraid to tackle the old lady, and so had thought to conciliate
her by asking her advice on some minor point. He might as well have
tried to conciliate a mad dog, and he gave her up hopelessly.
Everything was now ready. Judge Ralston was there, leaning heavily on
his gold-headed cane, with his wife leaning on him. Elithe was in her
place, with the blue veil over her face and shaking in every limb, for
now the worst was coming and there were so many looking on,—not at her
then, but at Paul, who was taking his seat, followed by Sherry, who
stretched himself upon the floor as he had done the previous day. With
his appearance and Paul’s, the hum of voices ceased and a great hush
pervaded the room until Miss Phebe Hansford was called.
“Oh, my Lord!” she was heard to ejaculate as she rose in response to the
call; then, in a loud whisper, “Let go my dress,” to Elithe, who had
unconsciously been holding to her skirt as a kind of safeguard and
defense.
Elithe dropped the dress, while Miss Hansford went forward, bristling
with defiance, her “near-see’ers” on her forehead now instead of the end
of her nose. Never before had a witness like her been seen upon the
stand. She cared neither for law, nor order, nor judge, nor jury, and
much less for the prosecuting attorney.
“’Tain’t likely I shall tell anything but the truth. I ain’t in the
habit of lying, like some folks I know,” she said, as she took the oath.
All her words were jerked out with a vim which made the spectators smile
in spite of themselves. When asked if she knew the prisoner, she
answered, “I’d laugh if I didn’t. Seems to me I’d ask something more
sensible than that and more to the point. You know I know him, and you,
too!”
Whether it was her derisive manner, or his nervousness in tackling her,
or both, the next question was certainly not necessary under the
circumstances, nor one he had intended asking her until it came into his
mind suddenly.
“How old are you, Miss Hansford?”
If scorn could have annihilated him, the attorney would have been wiped
out of existence, as Miss Hansford told him it was none of his business.
“Not that I’m ashamed of my age,” she said. “Anybody can know it who
cares to look in my family Bible, but it has nothing to do with this
case. I’m old enough to be a legal witness. I knew you when you was a
boy. If you are old enough to stand there asking me questions, I am old
enough to answer correctly, and I hain’t softening of the brain,
neither.”
The boys in the gallery roared, the judge pounded for order, Sherry
growled threateningly, and the discomfited attorney went on with the
examination, asking, next, how long she had known the prisoner.
“I’ve known Paul Ralston, if that’s who you mean by prisoner, ever since
he was knee-high and wore knickerbockers. I knew Jack Percy, too. I
believe he was a tolerably good man, or tryin’ to be, when he died, but
he was about the worst boy the Lord ever made, and Paul was the best,
and no more meant to kill Jack than you did,” was the reply.
There were more laughs from the boys and a buzzing of amusement
throughout the building, while Sherry growled and the judge again called
to order and instructed the witness that she was to keep to the
point,—to answer questions and not volunteer any testimony. He didn’t
know Miss Hansford, who paid no more attention to him than if he had
been a fly. In her estimation he was as bad as the attorney, and she
went on:
Beginning with the story of the watermelon, she repeated it in all its
details, with many other incidents of Paul’s boyhood, dropping her
spectacles once and pouring out a torrent of words which nothing could
check and which started the boys again. It was in vain she was called to
order, and finally threatened with punishment for contempt of court. She
didn’t care for a hundred courts, she said, nor for lawyers, nor for
law. There wasn’t any law when such a man as Paul Ralston could be
arrested and put in jail and dragged there to be gaped at by a crowd who
would much better be at home minding their business. She didn’t care if
they did fine her. She could pay it. She didn’t care if they put her out
of court, or in jail. She hoped they would, as then she wouldn’t have to
testify against Paul. The Lord knew, she wasn’t there of her own free
will, and she hoped He’d forgive her for swearing against the only man
she ever cared a picayune for, outside her own family. She loved Paul
Ralston and she wasn’t ashamed to say it, seein’ she might be his
grandmother.
There was an immense sensation in the gallery and among the spectators,
with more growls from Sherry and thumps and cries for order from the
judge, with a request that she stick to the point.
“How can I stick,” she said, “with you interruptin’ me all the time? If
you let me alone, I’ll tell what I know in my own way. If you don’t,
I’ll never get there.”
After that they let her alone. There was no other alternative, and, in a
rambling way, with many digressions, and now and then a question from
the prosecuting attorney, she told her story. She was sitting on her
steps,—the more’s the pity; she wished she had been in the cellar and
staid there. She saw Paul Ralston and spoke to him. He asked if they had
seen Jack Percy; said he was looking for him; seemed kind of mad. Why
shouldn’t he, after being knocked down like an ox? She heard the shot
not long after, but saw no one fire it, or run, either, and “them that
did see it might better have had their heads in the window reading their
Bible.”
This was a thrust at Elithe,—the only one she had given her,—and the
young girl stirred a little in her chair, then resumed her attitude of
perfect stillness and listened, while her aunt went on:
She was first at the clump of bushes and found Jack with a bullet hole
in his head. He was carried to her cottage and died there towards
morning. Paul came in, surprised and shocked to find it was Jack who had
been shot, and with no more signs of guilt than she had. She hunted for
the revolver and couldn’t find it, but Seth Walker did. She took it from
him and wished now she had thrown it into the sea. That was all she
knew, so help her Heaven, and she wished the land she didn’t know that.
To question her further was useless and she was turned over to the
defense for cross-examination.
The counsel to whom this duty fell knew he had a _case_ to deal with and
began warily, finding her attitude materially changed. The side which
had subpoenaed her was against Paul; the defense was for him, and she
would like to have taken back all she had said, if she could
consistently do so. Only once did she grow peppery and threatening, and
that when the lawyer tried to shake her recollection of what she saw and
heard.
“Have you ever thought your memory might be a little treacherous? It is
apt to become so—with age,” the lawyer said, and Miss Hansford roused at
once.
If there was one thing more than another in which she prided herself,
after her blood, it was her memory, and an insinuation that it was
faulty made her furious.
“I wish to the Lord it was treacherous,” she said, “but it ain’t. I can
remember everything I ever heard or saw, and more, too. I know what I am
talking about, if I have acted like a tarnal fool and made a spectacle
of myself. I’m so mad that I have to be here, but I know what I’m about
if I am sixty-five years old. There, you’ve found out my age, haven’t
you, and you are welcome to it.”
She turned to the attorney, who, now that he was rid of her, was
enjoying her idiosyncrasies to the full. A few more questions were asked
her, and then, with a parting shaft at the judge, the lawyers and the
whole business, she was dismissed, with cheers from the boys, who were
not to be restrained by any threats of the police officer shaking his
club at them, or any calls from the judge, scarcely less amused than
they were. The spectators were all laughing. Things to-day were lively
and atoned for the monotony of yesterday’s proceedings.
The physicians who attended Jack were next called and testified to
Paul’s appearance in the room, with no signs of guilt in his manner. He
had suggested suicide, and they had accepted the theory for a time, or
one of them had. The other, for whom Elithe had been sent, had been
suspicious from what she told him she had seen. There was a faint sound
from Elithe, whose hand grasped her aunt’s dress again as if for support
or comfort. Miss Hansford was bathed in perspiration, which rolled down
her face and dropped from her nose and chin. She was weak, too, and
leaned back in her chair and fanned herself with her handkerchief until
some one passed her a palm-leaf and a glass of water. Thus revived she
sat up stiff and straight as before, while the bullet extracted from the
wound was produced and fitted into the revolver, which was again passed
for inspection.
“Don’t pint it this way,” she said, with a toss of her head, as it came
near her.
The boys laughed, the judge frowned and proposed a recess before Elithe
was called. The day was one of those close, sultry days which sometimes
come in September, and are more unendurable than those of summer.
Outside the huge building the white heat quivered on the sea and on the
land with but little breeze to cool it. Inside the air was so stuffy one
could almost have cut it, although every door and window was open. Fans
and hats and newspapers were doing active service, and the water was
trickling down the faces of the spectators, the most of whom kept their
seats for fear of losing them should they go out for a moment. Two or
three spoke to Elithe, asking if it would not be better for her to take
some refreshment and exercise before being called to the stand.
“No,” she said, “if I go out, I shall not come back. I should like a
glass of water,—that is all.”
Tom brought it to her, his hand shaking so that part of it was spilled
on her dress. He was on the side of the defence, but no one had listened
to the prosecution with more absorbed attention or with more real
curiosity. He had not even smiled at Miss Hansford, and oh, how he
pitied Elithe and dreaded what was before her! He wiped the water from
her dress, offered to bring her more and, stooping, whispered some words
of encouragement. She scarcely heard him. She had neither hope nor
courage. In everything so far, it seemed to her she had been the central
figure and what she said had been repeated again and again and was the
pivot on which everything was turning. She was to blame for it all,—even
for Jack’s death. If she had not been there he would not have come to
Oak City. If he had not come he would not have been shot, nor Paul
arraigned for the shooting, nor she brought forward as witness against
him. Without seeming to do so she had heard all the testimony and
thought her aunt peculiar and been glad when it was over. The laughter
of the boys and the calls to order jarred upon her as they would have
done had Paul been in his coffin instead of in the prisoner’s chair. She
did not feel the heat or know how close the atmosphere of the room was
with the hundreds of breaths and the scorching air which came through
the windows. She was not warm. She was only thirsty and drank the water
Tom brought her eagerly.
When he spoke to her and said, “It’s coming soon, but be brave. It won’t
last long. They’ll be nice with you,” she shook her head as if he
troubled her, and said to him, “Don’t, Tom; please don’t talk to me.”
She was thinking of her father’s advice not to volunteer information and
open doors for the counsel to walk in, and praying that she needn’t do
so. The house was filling again, fuller if possible than during the
morning session. There was scarcely standing room, and the afternoon sun
poured in at the windows until the seats seemed baked and blistered. But
those on whose heads and necks it fell did not feel it, or feeling it,
did not mind. The crisis was coming,—the hour had struck for which they
were waiting and for which many had come from Boston and Worcester and
New Bedford. Miss Elithe Hansford was to be sworn.
As she heard her name she started violently, it sounded so loud, echoing
through the room, repeating itself over and over again and finally
floating off until it seemed thousands of miles away, and she wondered
if her father could not hear it in Samona and know her time had arrived.
A thought of him and a fervent “God help me,” quieted her somewhat, and,
rising to her feet, she removed her veil and hat. Why she took off the
latter she did not know unless it were the least weight upon her head
oppressed her. Her hair had grown rapidly since she came to Oak City and
was twisted into a small flat knot in her neck, but clustered around her
forehead in short curls. These were wet with the perspiration, which
stood in drops on her face. Wiping them off and running her fingers
through her hair, she took the place assigned her, a little figure, with
hollow eyes and face as white as marble and lips which quivered as she
took the oath.
Those who had never seen her before thought how small and young and
pretty she was in spite of her pale cheeks and tired eyes telling of
tears and sleepless nights. Paul had smiled more than once at Miss
Hansford’s defiance of all law and order, but his face changed and
seemed to contract and shrivel up as he looked at Elithe and leaned
forward to listen. It was not resentment he felt that she was testifying
against him, but an intense pity that she had to do it and a wish that
he could save her from it. How sweet and modest she looked, standing
there with downcast eyes and hands grasping the chair against which she
leaned for support and how her voice shook when she began to speak. All
this Paul noted, and for a time the feeling of yesterday came back and
he forgot his own identity again. _He_ was not the prisoner being tried
for his life. That was one of the detestable men drinking in Elithe’s
beauty, remarking every curve of her girlish figure, every turn of her
graceful head. He, Paul, was only a spectator, watching Elithe,—wishing
he could reassure her,—could tell her to speak louder so that all could
hear. At last she looked at him with such anguish and entreaty in her
eyes that he smiled his old-time smile she knew so well and which acted
like a tonic upon her nerves and loosened the band around her forehead.
He did not hate her; he did not blame her; he had no fear of what she
might say. Something had come up of which she had not heard and which
would be explained when she was through. He was safe no matter what she
said. She had sworn to tell the truth, and she must do it. The mass of
faces in front of her didn’t trouble her now. God had helped Paul and
was helping her with courage and strength.
Drawing herself up from the drooping attitude she had assumed, she
answered the questions put to her, telling where she was when she saw
and spoke to Paul and saying she could not be mistaken in him when she
saw him fire the shot and throw the revolver away. His face was partly
turned from her, but she knew his figure and his coat,—a light gray,—and
his hat. He fired low, and when he heard the groan, as he must have
heard it, he hurried off into the woods towards the west, and a few
minutes later they found Mr. Percy lying behind the clump of bushes at
which Paul had aimed. This was the substance of her testimony, and while
she gave it scarcely a sound was heard in the room, so intense was the
interest with which the people listened. Even the fans and hats and
papers were motionless, although the heat grew more intense as the sun
poured in at the western windows, and not a leaf stirred on the trees
outside, or scarcely a ripple on the water. She had kept her eyes on
Paul, who listened, fascinated and bewildered, and still with a feeling
that it was not himself she was talking about.
At the close of her testimony she addressed him personally and said: “I
didn’t want to come, but they made me. I know you didn’t mean to do it.
You did not know Mr. Pennington was there.”
At the mention of Mr. Pennington there was a low buzz in the room which
Elithe heard and understood. Blushing scarlet, she continued: “I mean
Mr. Percy. You did not know he was there. You fired low at some animal.
I thought I heard a rustle in the leaves.”
“By George, she’s hit the nail on the head,” Tom Drake exclaimed,
springing to his feet and nearly upsetting an old lady sitting next to
him and munching caraway seed.
No one had followed Elithe more closely than Tom, whose springing up and
exclamation were involuntary, and when some one behind him called out,
“Sit down!” he sat down as quickly as he had risen, and no further
attention was paid to him. All the interest was centred on Elithe, whose
face shone with wonderful brightness and beauty as she turned from Paul
to the judge and said: “He didn’t do it on purpose. He can explain, and
you will let him go, won’t you?”
Never was there a fairer pleader, or one more in earnest than Elithe.
She didn’t know she was infringing upon the etiquette of legal procedure
and no one enlightened her. The judge blew his nose, the jurors winked
very hard, while Paul covered his face with his hands to hide the tears
he could not keep back and which made him Paul Ralston again,—the man
for whose release Elithe was asking so innocently. The direct
examination was over, and she felt relieved, thinking she was through.
“More! Must I tell more?” she asked pathetically, when given into the
hands of a lawyer on the other side.
He was a kind-hearted man and he pitied the young girl who had borne so
much, but he must do his duty, and their only hope of success lay in
weakening her testimony and show cause why she might think she saw what
she did not see. He was one of the most adroit men for cross-questioning
in the profession, approaching the citadel to be attacked cautiously,
boring here, undermining there, confusing and bewildering until the
witness so unfortunate as to fall into his hands contradicted himself
and did not really know what he saw or heard. Paul knew his reputation
and wondered how Elithe would come through the ordeal. She felt
intuitively what was before her and braced herself for it.
“Will some one bring me some more water?” she said, and there was a
different ring in her voice.
Three or four started to get the water, but Tom was ahead of them. He
didn’t spill it this time, but whispered to her: “You’ve the very Old
Harry to deal with. If you want to _forget_, it will be pardonable now.”
Did he mean that he hoped she would waver in her testimony and take back
some things she had said? Elithe wondered. If so, he would be mistaken.
She knew what she saw and heard, and nothing could make her gainsay it.
She did not look at Paul now, but square at the man asking innumerable
questions which seemed to have no bearing on the case and then suddenly
pouncing upon the real point in a fashion confusing at least. Where was
her home? Where did she first see Paul Ralston? Did she know him so
intimately that she could not mistake another for him? What facilities
had she for knowing him so well? Did he visit her often? or, did she
visit at the Ralston House? What was she doing in her room when she saw
Paul from her window? and could she repeat the conversation she held
with him, and so on.
These and many more questions were asked her, and she answered them all
without hesitation. Her home was in Samona. She first met Paul on the
boat. She had seen him many times since. She knew him well,—better than
any man in Oak City. She could not be mistaken in him, and she was
reading the Bible in her room when she heard his voice and spoke to him
from the window. She could repeat the conversation she held with him, if
necessary. Then she told again what she saw and heard, never varying her
story an iota.
It was seldom the questioner had such a witness to deal with. She looked
so young that he had thought it an easy matter to worry her into
contradictions. But she was firm as a rock, saying always the same, no
matter how he approached her, and keeping her truthful eyes upon him
with a gaze so steady that he was losing his nerve and wondering how he
should next attack her. He struck it at last and hated himself for the
satisfaction he felt when he saw the color come into her face and the
startled look in her eyes when he asked: “You knew Mr. Percy under
another name, I believe? What was that name?”
“Mr. Pennington, John Pennington,” she answered, her voice not quite
steady, but her eyes still fixed upon him with an expression so
beseeching that it made him look away from her up at the ceiling, where
a big spider was watching to capture a fly creeping slowly his way.
He likened himself to the spider and Elithe to the fly, but continued:
“Do you know why he took that name?”
“I never heard. We do not ask such questions in Samona,” Elithe
answered, with a manner worthy of her aunt, who was sitting with a hand
holding each side of her chair, her lips apart and her head thrown
forward so as not to lose a word.
“You don’t ask such questions in Samona?” the lawyer repeated, still
regarding the fly coming nearer to the web. “Will you please tell where
you first met him and under what circumstances?”
“I saw him first at Deep Gulch, where my father preaches once a month.
He was very ill,” Elithe said, without a falter in her voice, although
her heart was throbbing so she thought her interlocutor must hear it.
“Ill, was he, and you nursed him?”
Elithe did not think that a question, and did not answer until it was
repeated; then she said: “If sitting by him all night, with Mrs. Stokes
and my brother in the room, was nursing him, I did so. Yes.”
The red on her face was deepening, but her voice was still steady as the
cross-examination proceeded:
“You sat with him all night, and after that you saw him often?”
“Yes, very often in Samona, when he came to the hotel.”
“He visited at your house on terms of intimacy?”
“Yes.”
“Was he respected in Samona?”
“Yes, highly respected, and in Deep Gulch, too. The miners worshipped
him,” Elithe said, with energy.
She had forgotten Paul for the time being, and was defending Jack.
“And he was perfectly straight while he was there,—sober, I mean?”
“Perfectly,” Elithe replied, wondering why such questions should be
asked her, and, glancing at her aunt, whose glasses had slipped to the
end of her nose and who, under her breath, was calling the lawyer a “dum
fool,” notwithstanding that he was on Paul’s side, and for his sake
trying to confuse Elithe.
“If he were so sober and circumspect in Samona while you were there, why
did he change, do you think?” was the next query, to which Elithe’s
reply was quick and decisive:
“I supposed I was here to tell what I know, and not what I think.”
Paul’s hands struck each other in a wordless cheer; the boys in the
gallery laughed, and the lawyer’s gaze came back from the spider and the
fly to this slip of a girl, who had more backbone than he had given her
credit for. Her eyes were still upon him,—very tired now and worried and
beseeching, as if asking him to let her go and leave Jack Percy in his
grave. He had no such intention. If he could prove her prepossession in
Jack’s favor he would gain a point, and thus, perhaps, weaken her
testimony by showing that her evidence was biased.
“True,” he said, “you are here to tell what you know. You and Mr. Percy
were great friends? Isn’t that so?”
“We were good friends. Yes.”
“And you liked him very much?”
“Dum fool!” Miss Hansford said, louder than before, while her glasses
dropped from her nose to the floor, where they lay unheeded.
She guessed the drift of the questioning and was hot with indignation.
For a moment Elithe hesitated and her face grew spotted as she, too,
began to see the snare before her.
“I liked him. Yes.”
“Very much?”
She did not answer him at once, and when she did she said, “What does it
matter whether I liked him much or little?”
She was proving herself her aunt’s own niece. Her voice sounded defiant;
her eyes had lost their look of entreaty and confronted the lawyer in a
way which made him feel very uncomfortable. He looked up at the spider’s
web. The fly had veered away from it, and the spider was in pursuit. His
fly might escape him if he were not more wary and discreet. He must
prove that Jack Percy, as John Pennington, had been the lover of this
girl, whom he disliked to catechize as much as she disliked to have him.
After a little more skirmishing on his part, and evasion on Elithe’s, he
cleared his throat, gave one look at the big spider swinging down from
the ceiling and said, “Miss Hansford, I believe you were engaged to
marry Mr. Percy, were you not?”
The effect was wonderful. Elithe had not expected this in so bare-faced
a form, and it roused her to a pitch of high excitement.
“Engaged to Mr. Percy! I? Never! It is false; all false. Why will you
torture me so? Why will anybody believe it, when it is not true? I was
never engaged to him; never could have been. Never! He was my _friend_.
That was _all_. I shall say no more about him, or anything else.”
She emphasized the “all” and the “friend” with a stamp of her foot and a
nod of her head, and, without being told to go, walked deliberately from
the place where she had been standing. No effort was made to recall her.
She felt that she was through and put out her hand to find her chair.
“Let’s go out! Can’t we?” she said to her aunt, whose shoulder she
grasped in her blindness.
Everything swam around her. The voice of the lawyer, asking if she were
not engaged to Jack Percy, kept sounding like thunder. Paul’s face was
seen through a mist,—troubled, anxious and sorry; the floor came up to
meet her, and, by the time she reached the door, led by her aunt, she
fainted. Instantly Paul arose to go to her,—then sank back with a groan,
remembering he was not free.
“Go to her, father. Don’t let everybody touch her,” he called aloud to
his father, who hastened to the room where she was being shaken and
fanned, and deluged with water and strangled with hartshorn and camphor,
until she came back to consciousness.
“What have I done? Where have I been?” she said.
“Been through a thrashing machine and come out whole,” her aunt said,
wiping the water from her hair and dress, and putting on her hat.
“Are they through? Is it over? Will they let him go?” she asked.
No one replied, except to say that she was through and could go home as
soon as she liked.
“Take my carriage. It’s too far for her to walk,” Judge Ralston said,
putting her and her aunt into it, and then returning to his wife.
It was Tom who drove Elithe home and said to her as he lifted her out,
“He’ll get off yet.”
“Get off! What nonsense! We’ve hung him,” was Miss Hansford’s retort, as
she hurried Elithe into the house.
It was very hot and close indoors and Elithe felt that she should
suffocate if she staid there.
“I must go where I can breathe,” she said, and, taking her hat, she
started for the Baptist Tabernacle, which was open on three sides.
Her head was aching both above and below the band still pressing her
forehead, and her heart was aching harder as she thought over the events
of the day and recalled all she had said and all that had been said to
her. It was so much worse than she had expected, especially the
cross-questioning to which she had been subjected. She knew it had been
done to weaken her testimony and help Paul, but the smart was none the
less and her cheeks burned so that she put up her hands to cool them. In
her absorption, she did not know anyone was near her until a voice said,
“Miss Hansford!”
Then she looked up with a cry of joy, for her first thought was that
Paul was standing beside her.
“Oh!” she said, “it’s you, Tom. I thought it was Mr. Ralston.”
“I’ve been told before that we looked alike, especially when I have on
his clothes, as I generally do,” Tom replied. Then, still standing
before her, he began: “Suppose it goes hard with Mr. Paul?”
“Do you mean hanging?” Elithe asked.
“Perhaps not that,” Tom answered, “but State’s prison, with a convict’s
dress and a felon’s cell, not much like the room he is now in. The
evidence against him is awful strong. The defense have nothing to offer
except his good character. It looks pretty black for him.”
“I couldn’t bear it. I should know I put him there. Oh, Tom, you have
said all the while it wouldn’t be, and I believed you and felt there was
hope when they were making me tell what I knew.”
“There is hope,” Tom answered, sitting down close to Elithe and speaking
very low. “Let’s look it square in the face. If he owns to accidental
shooting, which he never will, they’ll give him a few years unless we
prevent it.”
“How prevent it? What can we do?” Elithe asked, looking earnestly at Tom
and thinking for the first time how he had changed within the last few
weeks.
He had grown very thin. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, with a
haunted look in them, as if he were constantly on the alert to ward off
some threatened evil.
“Listen,” he said. “I have known Mr. Paul all my life. Father and mother
have charge of the Ralston House, summers and winters. I was a boy with
Mr. Paul, who has always treated me more like a brother than a servant.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. Give my life, if
necessary,—although it is hard to die when one is young.”
Here he stopped, and, dropping his head, seemed to be considering. Then
he went on: “They’ll be through to-morrow and sentence him, unless we do
something. I’ve thought it all out. The jail is a ricketty old
rattletrap; the jailer sleeps far away from Mr. Paul’s room and is deaf;
the window casings are rotten as dirt; the bars loose. I know, I’ve
tried ’em. I haven’t been there night after night for nothing. It’s easy
for him to get out and be free.”
“Oh, if he only could,” Elithe said, and Tom continued: “I can do it,
but must have help. I can trust no one but you. Will you go with me
to-night? You know the Ralston boat-house. Meet me there at twelve
o’clock sharp. We’ll row up the coast, opposite the jail. I know a place
where we can land. I’ve been there two or three times. We can fasten the
boat till we get him out. What do you say?”
Elithe had scarcely breathed as Tom talked, but now she said, “What will
you do with him? He can’t go on the street.”
“Leave that to me,” Tom replied. “You’ve heard of that queer room in the
basement of the Ralston House, once used by smugglers, they say. Few
know the entrance to it. We’ll keep him there till the search blows
over. It won’t last long, or be very thorough. Then, we’ll get him off
the island some way if I have to row him across to the Basin. I can do
that, and he can go to Europe or Canada or somewhere. There’s not a man,
woman or child that will not be glad to hear he has escaped.”
Elithe was young and ignorant and excited, and did not consider the risk
in trying to escape from the island, or the obstacles to be surmounted
after it and the sure penalty if he were captured. She only thought of
Paul free, and that by helping to free him she would atone for her
testimony against him. Just why Tom needed her she did not ask, and he
scarcely knew himself, except that he wanted companionship and knew he
could trust her. After thinking a moment, she said, “I’ll go with you,
but I’d like to tell auntie.”
“Not for the world!” was Tom’s energetic response. “Nobody must know it
but you and me. After he is safe in the basement, I shall tell his
father and mother.”
Elithe was persuaded, and, with a promise not to fail, she left Tom and
returned to the cottage, where supper was waiting for her. But neither
she nor her aunt could eat much. Their thoughts were with the incidents
of the day they had passed, and which seemed to have added years to Miss
Hansford’s age and Elithe’s feelings. They didn’t talk of it. They could
not, and at an early hour they said good-night to each other and went to
their respective sleeping rooms. Once alone, Elithe began to waver and
wish she had not promised Tom to join him. Then came thoughts of Paul
and the joy it would be to see him free; aye, more, to help set him
free, and she hesitated no longer. She heard the clock strike ten; then,
overcome with fatigue, fell asleep in her chair, but awoke again as the
clock was striking eleven. In an hour she was due at the boat-house,
and, with her hat on, she sat down to wait and calculate how much time
she ought to allow to reach it. It was dark, and once or twice she heard
the sound of thunder in the distance and, as she leaned from the window
to listen, she felt a coolness, like coming rain, upon her face. It must
be time now, she thought, to start, and, with a noiseless step, she went
down the back stairs and through the kitchen door. Once outside, she
breathed more freely and felt her way cautiously along the piazza to the
front steps, uttering a smothered cry as a hand grasped her arm.
“Hush!” came warningly from Tom, who had come to meet her.
“It’s awfully dark; there’s a storm brewing, and I thought you might be
afraid,” he said, keeping hold of her and hurrying her along to the boat
house.
The wind was rising, and the sea was running high with an angry sound in
it, and white caps showing through the darkness.
“Oh, Tom, I’m afraid. Let’s walk,” Elithe said, drawing back from a
great wave which came rolling into the boat house.
“There’s danger on the road and none on the sea. I’ve been out in much
rougher weather than this,” Tom said, lifting Elithe into the boat.
He was very calm and fearless, and his calmness helped to quiet Elithe
as they pushed out upon the dark water, keeping as near the shore as
possible, until they landed at a point nearly opposite the jail. A few
drops of rain were beginning to fall as they groped their way across the
sands and the strip of meadow, or marsh land, between it and the
highway. Everything about the building was still as death. The jailer
was unquestionably asleep, and possibly Paul.
“But we’ll soon have him awake and with us,” Tom said, encouragingly, to
Elithe. “Here’s the stone I’ve sat on many a night and planned this
raid. You sit here now and keep these matches under your sacque away
from the rain till I tell you to give me one. Maybe I shall want you to
help a little with the bars.”
Elithe felt very much like a burglar as she obeyed Tom and sat down upon
the stone, just as a flash of lightning lit up the sky showing the wide
expanse of angry waters and the foaming waves rolling almost up to where
she was sitting. Tom was at the window, she knew, for she could hear him
as he tugged at the iron bars which offered more resistance than he had
expected.
“Miss Elithe, can you help? Are you strong?” he whispered.
“As a giant,” she answered, losing all her fear, as, standing on the
stone Tom rolled under the windows, she put all her strength into the
task of liberating Paul.