MEANWHILE Colonel Royall and Judge Ladd had been in consultation in the
judge’s private office, behind the court-room.
Governor Aylett and Jacob Eaton had definitely decided to appeal the
case, and a slight discrepancy in the stenographer’s notes had made
it necessary for Colonel Royall to review a part of his testimony.
Having disposed of these technicalities, the colonel found it difficult
to depart. He and Judge Ladd had been boys together; they met
infrequently, and the present situation was interesting.
The colonel stood with his thumbs inserted in the armholes of his
marseilles waistcoat, his hat on the back of his head, and a placid
smile on his lips. The judge sat at his table, smoking a huge cigar
and meditating. In his heart he rather resented the rapid rise of the
unknown young lawyer; he had worked his own way up inch by inch, and he
had no confidence in meteoric performances, and said so.
“Well,” said the colonel slowly, “I reckon I’d better not say anything,
Tommy, I’m on the wrong side of the fence; I’m Jacob’s cousin, though I
feel like his grandfather.”
The judge knocked the ashes from his cigar and said nothing. It was not
in his province to discuss the defendant just then.
“I’d give something handsome,” the colonel continued, “to know how in
mischief Trench got such a hold on the backwoodsmen. Todd follows him
about like a lapdog, too, yet he doesn’t hesitate to condemn Todd’s
methods of getting evidence.”
The judge grunted. “Heard about personal magnetism, haven’t you?” he
asked tartly; “that’s what he’s got. I sat up there on the bench and
listened when he began to address the jury. I’ve heard hundreds do it;
I know the ropes. Well, sir, he took me in; I thought he was going to
fall flat. He began as cool and slow and prosy as the worst old drone
we’ve got; then he went on. By George, David, I was spellbound. I clean
forgot where I was; I sat and gaped like a ninny! He cut right through
their evidence; he knocked their witnesses out one by one; he tore
their logic to pieces, and then he closed. There wasn’t a shred of ’em
left. I charged the jury? Yes, hang it! But I knew what the verdict
would be, so did every man-jack in the court-room.”
“Remarkable!” exclaimed the colonel. “I admit it, Tommy; I was there.”
“Then why the devil didn’t you say so?” snapped the judge.
“Thought you saw me; I was in the front row,” replied the colonel, with
a broad smile.
“See you?” retorted the judge fiercely, “see you? I didn’t see a
damned thing but that young shyster, and before he got through I could
have hugged him, yes, sir, hugged him for making that speech.”
The colonel shook with laughter. “Tommy,” he began.
But just then there were two sharp reports of a pistol near at hand,
followed by a tumult in the street below. Both men hurried to the
window, but the jutting wing of the court-room hid the center of
interest, and all they could see was the crowd of human beings huddled
and packed in the narrow entrance of the alley that led to the Criminal
Court-room. There were confused cries and shoutings, and almost
immediately the gong of the emergency ambulance.
“Some one’s been shot,” said Judge Ladd coolly; then he turned from the
window and halted with his finger on the bell.
The door from the court-room had opened abruptly and Judge Hollis came
in. Both Ladd and Colonel Royall faced him in some anxiety; there was
an electric current of excitement in the air.
“Yarnall has been shot dead,” he said briefly.
“My God!” exclaimed Judge Ladd.
Colonel Royall said nothing, but turned white.
“Have they got the assassin?” the judge demanded, recovering his
self-control.
“No,” replied Judge Hollis, a singular expression on his face. “No, the
shot was fired from the window of the court-room; the room was empty,
everybody at dinner, and the windows open; the pistol is on the floor,
two chambers empty. Only one man was seen in the window, a negro, and
he has escaped.”
“A negro?” the judge’s brows came down, “no, no!” Then he stopped
abruptly, and added, after a moment, “Was he recognized?”
“They say it was Juniper,” said Judge Hollis stolidly.
“Wild nonsense!” exclaimed Colonel Royall.
Hollis nodded. His hat was planted firmly on his head and he stood like
a rock. “Nevertheless, there’s wild talk of lynching. Ladd, I think
we’d better get the lieutenant-governor to call out the militia.”
The storm in the street below rose and fell, like a hurricane catching
its breath. Colonel Royall looked out of the window; the crowd in the
alley had overflowed into the square, and swollen there to overflow
again in living rivulets into every side street. He looked down on a
living seething mass of human beings. The sunlight was vivid white; the
heat seemed to palpitate in the square; low guttural cries came up. The
names of Yarnall and Eaton caught his ear. He remembered suddenly the
significance of Judge Hollis’ glance at him, and he did not need to
remember the blood feud. Suddenly he saw the crowd give way a little
before a file of mounted police, but it closed again sullenly, gathered
the little group of officers into its bosom and waited.
The old man had seen many a fierce fight, he had a scar that he had
received at the Battle of the Wilderness, he had a gunshot wound at
Gettysburg, but he felt that here was the grimmest of all revelations,
the slipping of the leash, the wild thing escaping from its cage, the
mob! The low fierce hum of anger came up and filled their ears, he
heard the voices behind him, the rushing feet of incoming messengers,
the news of the lieutenant-governor’s call for the militia. Then he
suddenly remembered Diana, and plunged abruptly down-stairs.
She had been waiting all this while alone in the lower room, yet,
before the colonel got there, Caleb Trench came back. He had just told
her what had happened when her father appeared.
“My dear child,” said the colonel, “I clean forgot you!”
Diana was very pale, but she smiled. “I know it,” she said, glancing
at Caleb. “Once father got excited at the races at Lexington and when
some one asked him his name, he couldn’t remember it. He paid a darkey
a quarter to go and ask Judge Hollis who he was! Colonel Royall, I must
go home.”
“So you must,” agreed the colonel, “but, my dear, the crowd is--er--is
rather noisy.”
“It’s a riot, isn’t it?” asked Diana, listening.
They heard, even then, the voice of it shake the still hot air. Then,
quite suddenly, a bugle sounded sweetly, clearly.
“The militia,” said the colonel, in a tone of relief. “I reckon we can
go home now.”
“You can go by the back way,” said Caleb quietly; “stay here a moment
and I’ll see that some one gets your carriage through the inner gate.
The troops will drive the mob out of the square.”
He had started to leave the room when Colonel Royall spoke. “Is--is
Yarnall really quite dead?”
“Killed instantly,” said Caleb, and went out.
Diana covered her face with her hands; she had been braving it out
before him. “Oh, pa!” she cried, “how dreadful! I was almost frightened
to death and--and I always thought I was brave.”
“You are,” said the colonel fondly; “I was a brute to forget
you--but--well, Diana, it was tremendously shocking.”
Diana’s face grew whiter. “Pa,” she said suddenly, “where--where is
Jacob?”
The colonel understood. “God knows!” he said, “but, Diana, he wasn’t in
the court-room!”
“Oh, thank God!” she said.
It was then that Caleb came back, and she noticed how pale he looked
and how worn, for the long weeks of preparation for the trial and the
final ordeal had worn him to the bone. “The carriage is waiting,” he
said simply, and made a movement, slight but definite, toward Diana.
But she had taken her father’s arm. The colonel thanked the younger man
heartily, yet his manner did not exactly convey an invitation. Caleb
stood aside, therefore, to let them pass. At the door, Diana stopped
her father with a slight pressure on his arm, and held out her hand.
“Good-bye,” she said quietly, “and thank you.”
Caleb watched them disappear down the corridor to the rear entrance
where two policemen were on guard. Then he went out, bareheaded, on the
front steps and glanced over the heads of the troopers sitting like
statues on their horses in front of the court-house. Yarnall’s body
had been carried in on a stretcher, and a detachment of the governor’s
guard filled the main entrance. Beyond the long files of soldiers the
streets were packed with men and women and even children. No one was
speaking now, no sounds were heard; there was, instead, a fearful
pause, a silence that seemed to Trench more dreadful than tumult.
He stood an instant looking at the scene, strangely touched by it,
strangely moved, too, at the thought of the strong man who had been
laid low and whose life was snapped at one flash, one single missile.
Death stood there in the open court.
Then some one cried out shrilly that there was Caleb Trench, the
counsel for Yarnall, the dead man’s victorious defender, and at the cry
a cheer went up, deep-throated, fierce, a signal for riot. The silence
was gone; the crowd broke, rushed forward, hurled itself against the
line of fixed bayonets, crying for the assassin.
A bugle sounded again. There was a long wavering flash of steel, as the
troopers charged amid cries and threats and flying missiles. A moment
of pandemonium and again the masses fell away and the cordon of steel
closed in about the square.
At the first sound of his name Caleb Trench had gone back into the
court-house. On the main staircase he saw Governor Aylett, Jacob Eaton
and a group of lawyers and officers of the militia. He passed them
silently and went up-stairs. Outside the court-room door was a guard of
police. The door of Judge Ladd’s inner office was open and he saw that
it was crowded with attorneys and officials. Judge Hollis came out and
laid his hand on Caleb’s shoulder.
“My boy,” he said, “this is the worst day’s work that has ever been
done here, and they want to lay it on a poor nigger.”
“I know,” replied Caleb, “he was the only one seen at the window.”
“Yes,” assented Judge Hollis, “but, by the Lord Harry, I’d give
something handsome to know--who was behind Juniper!”