Chapter IV: Book III: The Lover (4)

As he stood under the trees and faced the court-house, its brick walls glowing in the late sun, once more the prisoner's face rose before him, photographing itself indelibly upon his mind. Each feature stood out enlarged and vivid; black eyes, bold and fearless and insolent, with the surrounding whites almost entirely red from swollen veins; a low forehead from which black, wiry hair grew out, straight and stiff; a long, aquiline nose with wide nostrils in which showed a heavy growth of hair; heavy lips, the lower one protruding doggedly, yet both suggesting a certain generosity in their amplitude; the chin and side of the face covered with a short beard which reached far up the cheeks to where pock marks glowed deep and white against a swarthy complexion. It was a face characteristic of daring and wild deeds, yet in some lines about the eyes, inscrutable and haunting, there was something unconfessed.

All through the channels of Sargent's imagination, set in motion by this face, insistently colouring every conclusion reached, was the hidden characteristic about the man's eyes which signified something which he felt certain would help him in some way if he could find out what it meant. In a swift passion of futility he pushed out his hands to ward off the first signal of defeat that was steadily creeping over him. He covered his eyes to keep out the likeness of Phelps' face as it glowered down upon him from the court-house wall. Was it possible that he had failed? Had he been too self-confident? Was it only hatred and a desire for vengeance which had made up the ingredients of his confidence? At the end of each question stood the face of Jervais, and the duel--after that, another question. Finally, through the lengthening shadows, he strolled back to the broad steps and waited Judge Houston's coming.

They walked home in the twilight, the old man's arm linked in Sargent's, their heads bent forward in thoughtful silence.

"Did you look at him? Did you see his face?" Sargent asked as they turned the corner and approached the house.

"Whose face?" Judge Houston looked up quickly.

"The man's--Jacob Phelps."

"Yes--why?"

"Did you see anything in it but cruelty--malignity--daring?"

"No--there was nothing else."

"Oh, but you are mistaken. There is something else."

"What?"

"I don't know. I'd give half my life to find out. I must find out to-night--I will!"

Mrs. Houston was standing at the gate to welcome them, Natalia on her pony before the block, both of them silent in their impatience to hear the outcome of the first day.

"You all are bothered! I can see that right now. And such glum faces--look at them, Natalia," Mrs. Houston said cheerfully, as the two men came up to them. "I declare you all look as if Phelps was prosecuting you, instead of the reverse! And I have gone to lots of trouble to get up a good supper for you--lye-hominy, some nice, fresh roasted yams, and waffles! And here you both look like you wouldn't eat a mouthful, and Natalia says she won't stay either!" Mrs. Houston sighed in much distress. "I wish sometimes there was no such thing as law. It upsets my dinner hour and my plans, and is disastrous in lots of ways."

"So you'd rather have your dinner on time," laughed Judge Houston, "than all the highwaymen in the country in jail!" He walked across the sidewalk to speak to Natalia, leaving Sargent and his wife together.

"Is it so bad?" she asked quickly, her face searching Sargent's anxiously. "Are you worried about the outcome?"

"I know I shall win!" Sargent's eyes blazed again, "but I don't know yet how I shall do it. If I should fail now--"

"Of course you will not. Don't let that enter your thoughts. Can't Felix help you?"

"Not now," Sargent answered, his features still drawn and tense. "It's all with me now, and I'm glad of it."

The gentle old lady looked at the youth before her, so earnest and flushed, her eyes clouding at the possible disappointment awaiting him. She had seen all these hopes and desires so often before, in the days long passed when she and her young husband had started on their long pilgrimage. Then, looking beyond him, her eyes dwelt on Natalia pensively. When she spoke again her face was brimming with cheerfulness.

"On your way home," she said softly, "be very good to her. Forget all this worry and this abstraction and talk to her. It will do you good. Do you realize the place you have taken in the child's life? It has made me wonder if it was good for her or not. Sometimes," she ended, reflectively, "I wonder what you have done to gain her love so--and yet, I think I know."

Sargent glanced to where Natalia was leaning from her saddle and talking intently with Judge Houston. For the first time that day the tenseness of his face relaxed, and the memory of the courtroom and all it meant slipped from him.

"I believe I gained her love," he answered slowly, "by first loving her. Don't you think that is the only real way to gain another's love?"

"Yes--there are very few who fail to respond to being loved. It is so flattering," she smiled lightly. "But Natalia needed you just when you came. You know how out of sympathy she and Mrs. Brandon are?"

"That is not to be wondered at. Could you possibly find two more opposite natures? One--cool, calculating, and always just; the other--intense, wilful, passionate. Look at her now! She's more like some little fairy who has been lost from other fairies than anything else in the world. And how old she is at times! I feel that I am talking to some one a great deal older than I am. Tell me, Mrs. Houston," Sargent leaned nearer on the gate and his voice sank to a whisper, "now that she is going away, how can I make her remember me? If she were to go away and forget me--"

"She will not do that, my dear boy." She pressed his hand gently. "She's at the impressionable age, and she loves you with all her little, pent-up nature. She will not forget."

Sargent met her glance warmly. "You see, it is so different with me, from most men. My sensitiveness, my wretched infirmity, seems to make everything so much more serious to me. And when any one gets hold of my affections, I feel a tremendous need for them always. That is the way with Natalia--it was her sweet dependence, her yearning for sympathy, her quaint charm that have bound me tocher for ever. Of course she is only a child now," he hesitated suddenly, as if half unwilling to express his real feelings, "but if I could have the hope that she would come back to me some day--a woman loving me as she does now--anything would be worth enduring--for that!"

"If you all are going to talk all the evening, I'm going home," Natalia cried, from her pony. "And I told Zebby I'd be home surely by six o'clock."

Sargent hurriedly mounted his horse, which had been brought to the gate, and waved a farewell to Mrs. Houston. "Good-bye," she called to them, waving her handkerchief as they rode off. "I'm going to hear you make your maiden speech to-morrow. Good luck to you. Good-bye, Natalia."

It was almost dark when Sargent and Natalia left the town behind them, and through the dark forest bordering the cotton fields, a feathery crescent moon floated up and greeted them. The balmy spring breeze blew in their faces, and in the Western sky still lingered the faint glow of sunset. The cabins were sending up thin lines of white smoke, the delicious odour of fried bacon was in the air, and the sound of some one chopping wood in the distance gave a homely touch of comfort to the scene. Completing the peaceful holiness of the spring twilight came the harmonies of the slaves, singing as they went home from the day's work.

They rode along in silence. Natalia, dangling her little bonnet from its green ribbons, looked up at Sargent intently, but his eyes did not answer hers. They were bent on some distant object that she knew she could never see, and sighing slightly, she resigned herself to waiting for him to become aware of her presence. In her childlike adoration, there was sufficient happiness in being near him.

When the gate loomed before them through the vista of trees, Natalia guided her pony closer to Sargent, until he was forced to notice her.

"Aunt Maria said you were terribly bothered," she said, when he looked down at her out of his long abstraction. "Is that what makes you so different?" she ended plaintively.

"Yes--that's it, Natalia," Sargent answered, his brows knitted close together. "It seems to have ruined my whole outlook. I can't think of anything else. All the way home I could see nothing but that man's face. I believe I'm beginning to lose hope, too. Would you be sorry if Mr. Jervais won the case from me?"

Natalia looked up at him, drawing the pony to a sudden standstill in her amazement.

"Mr. Jervais can't do that! You wouldn't let him! I hate him anyhow!" She clenched her little hand. "Please don't let him win."

"Suppose I can not help myself? Suppose he has all the evidence on his side? What can I do then?"

"Well--" she said slowly, as if attempting to arrive at some conclusion. "Well--isn't Phelps a murderer?"

"Every one _thinks_ so. But I can not prove it."

"Do _you_ think so?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then," with an impatient toss of the head, "it's just as easy as can be. Make him say it is so."

Sargent threw back his head and laughed heartily for the first time in many days. And all the while Natalia stared at him with an expression that spoke eloquently surprise and wounded pride.

"Well, you needn't laugh so much about it!" she exclaimed, as Sargent's amusement seemed to increase. "You could make him tell you if you had a mind to. Mammy says you have a silver tongue, and when people have that, they can make other people tell everything they know. I don't care though, if you don't make him tell," she cried, the tears coming into her eyes as Sargent continued laughing. They were at the gate now, and as he lifted her from the pony, she struggled out of his arms and flew toward the house. "I don't care a picayune if you don't ever win a case!" she called back to him from the veranda, and then slammed the door tight after her.

Sargent walked slowly toward his room. The smile had gone from his face now, and in its place was an odd, quickening expression.

"Make him tell you!" he repeated Natalia's words as he unlocked the door of his room. "Make him tell you!" he repeated, as he blew out his candle, hours later. "Make him tell you!" he repeated all through that long, sleepless night.

*CHAPTER V*

*MAGNETISM*

The two men faced each other, the lawyer at one end of the long table, the prisoner barely ten feet away, in his chair before the jury. The moment was tense. Everything had been finished, even Jervais' eloquent speech to the jury, in which he had cautioned the twelve men not to let sentiment lead them to a decision, but to be guided only by the evidence and what had absolutely been proved. And now remained only the speech of the prosecution, on which rested the hopes of every one in the courtroom.

Even the jury had grown restless under the continued want of facts in the case. Their attitude toward the prisoner was but a reflection of the sentiment of the townspeople--they feared the man; his presence was a menace always to be faced; they wanted to be freed from his disturbing proximity; and they wanted to feel that long trips to neighbouring villages would be without the danger of this highwayman. In short they wanted him dead.

But what they had heard was not convicting. It was impossible, so far, to render a verdict of guilty, on what had been shown.

During the silence that followed Jervais' speech, Sargent rose from his chair, and stepped forward. A wave of disappointment rushed over the courtroom, for the people had hoped to the last that their district attorney would be able to leave his bed and come to the rescue, convicting the prisoner through the eloquence they had known for years. But everything seemed in favour of the prisoner, every one admitted that Jervais had made the finest speech of his career, and now that their great attorney had been substituted by a youth who had not even made his first speech before the bar, Phelps' chances for acquittal were depressingly certain.

What could this young lawyer do? This limping, Yankee schoolteacher who had come South to make a living? What could he do but complete the fiasco of the trial? A titter was heard at one end of the courtroom, followed by an outright laugh, and then, suddenly, silence fell again as a counter wave of interest fell over the audience. Something in the position of the two men--the lawyer and the prisoner--had claimed their attention.

Sargent, in rising, had not faced the jury, but stood perfectly silent and rigid, his gaze riveted upon the prisoner. In his eyes was no sign of fear, but a calm watchfulness of some expected danger. The prisoner returned the look, his blood-shot eyes keen and cat-like in the intensity of the passion boiling back of them. His coarse, unkempt hair hung in masses over his forehead, his rough skin and uneven beard and crouching posture but intensified his expression of brutality and vicious force.

The two seemed born to be antagonistic: the absolute want of visible sympathy made the contrast impressive.

Sargent put aside his cane and steadied himself with one hand upon the table; the other he held half poised, as if in the act of defence, for that morning a strange story had been whispered about, and during Jervais' speech it had reached him. He had been told that Phelps was desperate enough to attack him even in the courtroom.

Then, with his gaze still searching the blood-shot eyes of the prisoner, he began his speech. It took the intent crowd of listeners several minutes to adjust themselves to what was happening; then they found that the young lawyer was not talking to them, nor to the Judge, nor even to the jury. His words were directed only to the man before him.

In a low, clear voice, heard in every corner of the courtroom, he was describing to the prisoner, in pitiless detail, the crime committed; painting vividly the scene of the murder, the aged, respected planter lying dead on the floor of his room, a pool of blood about him, his belongings scattered everywhere, his valuables all gone. He told of the man's life, his charity, his good influence upon his neighbours. He described him at home, at his evening meal, surrounded by a happy and dependant family; his awakening in the night to find himself in the grip of a brutal antagonist--and at last, his feeble death struggle with an unseen foe.

The words came from his lips cold, crisp, clear cut, without feeling, yet so forcibly were they chosen, so short and cogent, that they fell upon the ears of his listeners like the beat of a huge hammer upon marble.

The scene rose before the listeners with a vividness that the real one would have lacked, for the wonderful voice of the young lawyer had set fire to their imaginations, and each man saw through his eyes. Every sentence jarred like an electric shock. There was no attempt at eloquence. Where was the need of it with such a subject? And while Sargent was unconsciously inflaming the passions of the crowd back of him, he continued to gaze straight into the blood-shot eyes of the prisoner with all the pent-up vital force within him. If he could only see the faintest sign of acknowledged guilt! That was the thing for which he was searching. It had not yet come.

For a moment his eyes wavered, and as if looking for some new inspiration, he glanced through the open windows to where the leaves of the trees were rustling in the breeze. He had found the prisoner impervious to his words. It was as if he had not been talking, so far as any change in the stolid features showed. There must be some other method necessary to touch the face of iron before him. But he had not reached the limit of his resources yet--no, not by half.

He turned back and faced the prisoner, as fresh and calm as if all the turbulence of a few moments ago had not come from his lips.

Now his eyes held no longer the look of scorn and antagonism. They were tender, appealing and sad. His voice softened and grew warm in its tones, and from him emanated that irresistible gentleness that, we are told, in after years drew even his enemies to him. He was using the utmost force of his magnetism to draw a confession from the man before him.

He began speaking again, telling of the family of the man who had been murdered, dwelling with a deep sympathy upon the young, fatherless children, who had to take up the burden of life without the guidance of their parent. Then, almost in a whisper, and with deep reverence, he spoke of the bereaved wife, a widow and a mother, a feeble woman, no longer young, left alone to care for the children, separated from her life partner and left to finish her days unprotected. He drew a telling picture of his own mother, of every man's mother, in a like situation.

There were tears in the eyes of the audience as they listened, there were tears in the eyes of the lawyer, and suddenly, as his words ended in a faint whisper, the blood-shot eyes of the prisoner shifted uneasily and were hidden for a moment by the falling lids.

A quiver passed over Sargent's slender figure. He lowered his right hand from the position of defence, and placing it beside the other, rested heavily against the table. A sensation of utter weariness crept over him. He could not recall having felt so exhausted ever before. It was the first time that he had used the full force of his magnetism, of which until that day he had been in ignorance. For a second, overcome by the new fatigue, he wondered if his power would last. The first signal of the confession was held in the drooping lids of the prisoner. Could he bring the rest?

Once more he took up the thread of his speech. Phelps met his gaze no longer, even the crouching position of one ready to spring relaxed, and he sank back into his chair and gazed steadily at his hands. Sargent leaned forward in his intensity, his words coming more rapidly. He was now dwelling on the laws of his country, on the need of these laws, of the rights of man which must be recognized and obeyed, of the Christianity of civilization, and of the punishment of God. His voice grew steadily louder as he urged the murderer to repent before he should reach the great tribunal of God, where repentance would be too late.

Still he could gain no answer from the man's downcast eyes. Within him a voice grew louder and more insistent. He felt the words leaving him in a stream of compelling force. Louder and louder, in the dead silence of the room they grew into thunderbolts that seemed to shake the building. On and on he went, a great light glowing from the depths of his eyes, until by the compelling force of his invectives, the irresistible power of his magnetism, the prisoner sprang from his chair and faced him.

For an instant they stood with only the table separating them, the accused man towering above the lawyer in a spasm of rage. Then, sweeping over his coarsened features came an expression of utter despair and misery, his eyes grew lustreless and dead, and drawing from his shirt a concealed dirk, he threw it from him and lowered his face upon his outstretched hands.

No word was spoken, but so completely did the agony of the man's face express his confession, that a shiver ran over the audience.

In the silence which followed Sargent stood with folded arms, amid the naked passions of the courtroom. A few minutes later, when he realized that they were still waiting for him to speak, he turned towards the jury and said slowly:

"Gentlemen, there is the murderer. Do with him as your conscience tells you."

He thought it was several hours afterwards, when in fact it was only ten minutes, that he became aware of his surroundings. He had sunk on the bench after addressing the jury, and before him had begun to swim all the fancies employed in his speech, and in a futile attempt to gather and separate them, as he had done before, he found himself tumbling from a great height, which his fast ebbing vital force made irresistible.

Then suddenly, in the midst of the turbulence, he felt the encouraging warmth of a friend's hand, and looking up, saw Judge Houston's broad back passing on towards the jury room.

Jacob Phelps lay forward on the table, his face buried in his outstretched hands. Beyond him stood Jervais, facing the hushed courtroom, with a countenance livid with fury.

Turning to see the cause of such an expression, Sargent looked for the first time into the sea of faces, pale and still, yet gazing at him with glowing eyes that told him their admiration and wonder. He understood their silence, and thrilled under the depths of feeling that kept them speechless. In that moment he knew that the commencement of his career was a triumph.

And while he stood with every nerve in his body tingling responsively to his blind joy, the jury re-entered the room and took their seats, and Judge Houston's voice rang out loud and sonorous.

"Jacob Phelps! Stand up!"

Phelps lifted his bowed head, his eyes roving furtively over the crowd of staring faces. Moving slightly, with the expression of one who is dazed into semi-consciousness, he stared back into the sea of faces--not one expression of kindness, of sympathy, of friendship for him was in that entire throng. Then, with the dull look of one who has relinquished all hope, he wheeled and faced the judge.

"Jacob Phelps, you have been judged, and convicted of murder--the highest crime known to the laws of the State of Mississippi. Have you anything to say, or any reason to give why the sentence of the law should not be pronounced upon you?"

In the breathless stillness there came a pause. Phelps did not answer. Again the judge's voice filled the courtroom.

"Then nothing now remains but the performance of my painful duty. The sentence of the law and the judgment of the Court is that you be taken hence to the jail of Adams County, and there safely confined until Thursday, the twentieth day of June, 1833, when between the hours of ten o'clock in the morning and noon, you be taken into the jail yard; and there, by the Sheriff of this County, you be hanged by the neck until you are dead--and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

*CHAPTER VI*

*TO BE HANGED BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD*

"Everett, you're a wonder, man." "Pick him up there, Suggs." "Now, all at once! Lift him up!" "Now, all together, we'll sing, 'See the conquering hero comes!'" "Where are we going? Oh, to the Mansion House, of course. I'm going to set 'em up until everybody has his fill." "Never heard a speech until I heard Everett's to-day."

Before he knew what had happened, Sargent had been surrounded as he came out of the courtroom, and hoisted to the shoulders of an admiring crowd that was waiting for him.

The people had gone wild in their enthusiasm over what he had done for them. On that day he found himself a public man, at the mercy of the whims of the public, and their whim at that moment was to find an outlet for their admiration.

They took his cane away from him, some one grabbed his broad felt hat and replaced it with a chimney pot that was not unbecoming by any means, and then they carried him on their shoulders to the bar of the Mansion House, and placing him on the counter, made him listen to their speeches of congratulations while the waiters plied every one present with more drinks than any one's capacity admitted.

Captain Mentdrop gave an eloquent peroration, in which he stated that he was the first one to introduce the Honourable Sargent Everett to the townspeople, who from thenceforth would give only honour and praise to his name. He would have continued interminably if it had not been that others were as anxious to claim that honour as the Captain. And for two hours the speech-making and jollification lasted, until every one grew hilarious over the motion that Sargent be sent as their representative to the next Legislature.

When the excitement had reached its height, and a crowd had gone out on the street to erect a bonfire--no matter if it were broad daylight--Sargent saw his chance to get away and slipped quietly out the back door of the tavern into a deserted street.

Walking as rapidly as his halting gait would permit, he traversed the streets where he would hardly meet any one, and came at last to the bluff that looked down over the river. Pushing his way through a tangle of undergrowth, he reached a place far enough from the town to be secure from interruption. Here he threw himself full length upon the ground, breathing hard from the unusual physical exertion. He was utterly exhausted, and covering his eyes with his hands he lay perfectly motionless.

When he looked up again a scarlet sun was sinking into the banks of dull grey clouds, and illumining weirdly the scene of river and distant flat country.

Ah! it was a relief to get away from the crowd of gaping faces, even if they spoke praise and admiration. And beyond that, he was glad that the courthouse, with all the associations which had in one moment become horrible to him, could not be seen from where he sat.

For a long time he remained perfectly still, gazing out upon the scene before him, seeing in it only dreariness and despair accentuated by the encroaching shadows; and all the time, as if to keep out some haunting sound, he pressed both hands over his ears.

And the change had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. Only a little while before, flushed with the pride of his first success, the blood surging happily through his veins, he had waited with the others for the verdict, and as the words rang out across the hushed courtroom, "To be hanged by the neck until you are dead!" they fell upon his overstrained nerves like an electric shock. Something within him snapped, and in the next moment he found himself looking into the miserable, hopeless eyes of the prisoner as they led him from the room.

After that Sargent felt the buoyancy and joy and triumph slip completely away from him. He was aware of nothing but the sound of those words, he heard them whispered over the courtroom, he heard them in the congratulations of his friends, he heard nothing else during the speech-making at the tavern, and now he knew that they had followed him to his retreat on the bluff, for he saw them written in lurid letters across the scarlet sunset.

At first in the chaotic whirling of his thoughts, he could not comprehend the strange effect upon him; he could see no reason for the sinister obsession. He had gotten what he had been concentrating all his energies upon for the past week. Why should the outcome overwhelm him in this unlooked for manner! He puzzled over it, attempting to separate the last expression of the prisoner's face and the meaning of the words. They were too analogous to bear separation, and gradually, gaining force with its development, came to Sargent the terrifying realization that without him the sentence would not have been pronounced. A kindred thought followed--more fearful than the first--in which he saw himself the murderer, not the prisoner who had committed the deed to escape detection, but he, a lawyer under the sanction of the laws of God and man committing the same deed in the name of justice and righteousness. And so the world would think of him; but how different he knew it was. Righteousness and justice had not once entered his thoughts; only hatred and revenge. Hatred and revenge! He had said them aloud to himself at night, to keep them from slipping out of his mind for even one second. And now he was to be paid for this deed with money, blood-money, as the prisoner had been rewarded with the same.

Where was the difference? Was not each a taking of life? Was not any man whose life was taken by another, murdered? Could there be any need in the world great enough to abrogate that command of God's--"Thou shalt not kill!"

He rose from the ground, and walked recklessly on into the woods that crowned the bluff. The sunset was gone now, and only a misty twilight hung through the vista of trees. A refreshing breeze from the north brushed against his flushed face and brought a tingle to his feverish senses. With the exhilaration came an added sharpness to his perceptions.

Argue as he would, he could not make himself realize that it was an ethical view of the case that he was taking. He saw himself at the outset of his career, with this man's blood upon his hands, and instinctively, with the insight that comes in a crisis of revulsion, he knew that no matter how long he lived, he would never be able to approve of capital punishment. The personal application was what riveted the chains of his conviction. The simple statement that without his speech the prisoner would have been free, answered eloquently all doubts and questions. It was he alone, who was to bring this man to death; it was useless to evade the responsibility.

"To be hanged by the neck until you are dead."

In a moment of terrifying excitement he spoke the words aloud, to gain a better effect of their significance, and with the sound of his own voice, the words received a more intimate meaning. Deeper under their weight he sank, until it was by a supreme effort that he checked himself in his mad striding, and turned back toward the town. There was some one there, who could surely show him a new aspect of the case, in which he could realize that the responsibility did not rest upon him alone. A new thought, a suggestion, a word of sympathetic understanding would mean so much to him--but all that praise, that enthusiastic admiration so lavishly bestowed upon him because he had made a speech that would rob a man of his life! He could not bear to think of hearing it again.

When he descended the hill the lights were glowing from the many windows of the town, as if a reflection of the star-lit night. There were not many doors open, for the spring night had suddenly grown cool, and the barred portals seemed to Sargent to look down upon him with an aloofness and withdrawal that expressed the attitude of the thinking world toward him. If it were not the sentiment of that day, it would be when people came to know and to judge him from the hidden motives.

The streets were dark, and as he made his way along no sound broke the stillness save the regular tap of his cane upon the plank walk. With resolute force and averted face he passed the courthouse, another block beyond he passed the jail in which the prisoner was awaiting his death, and finally, with the relaxation that comes when one realizes a haven has at last been reached, he got to the open door of Judge Houston's home, and looking through the hall and seeing the family at supper, he slipped quietly into library, and sat down.

The soft glow from two candles on the mantel was pleasant to his tired eyes; there was just light enough in the room for him to see the things that had become familiar and dear to him. His eyes lingered longest on the table where a row of books--law books of reference--always stood in a prim, neat row. In front of them, more intimately handled and never in the same place, thereby showing the love and use given to them, lay the three books from which the old gentleman received his greatest pleasure--Shakespeare, "Some Fruits of Solitude," and that old, leather bound book, worn and frayed at the corners.

In the centre of the table lay the thick portfolio of pigskin, beside it several newly cut quills, and to one side, laid by for the evening, rested the gold snuff-box.

Sargent's glance lingered affectionately upon each article, reluctantly falling at last upon the two notes addressed to himself, which were placed conspicuously on the table. One he knew by its heavily embossed envelope, its green seal, and the lustre of the ink with which it was addressed. Tearing it open indifferently, he started up in surprise, not expecting so sudden a culmination of the difficulty. Jervais had requested him to meet him at daybreak of the next day--if it were convenient. "Of course it is convenient," he murmured half aloud, "only," and his thoughts raced back to the problem of that day.

He turned to the other message, a coarse piece of paper folded over twice and addressed to him in a barely legible script. He unfolded this with a keener interest than the other, and leaning forward so the candle light would aid him in deciphering the words, he read:

"Will you come to see me? I want to tell you something. JACOB PHELPS."

He held the paper a long time in his hands, fingering it after his eyes no longer read the words, and gradually, over his tortured senses, drifted a feeling of peace and hope and joy. At last, under the full realization of the opportunity that had come to him, he settled back in his chair and closed his eyes.

In this attitude Judge Houston found him when he entered the library. The old man did not extend his hand, nor for a few moments did he say anything, having learned to read the young face before him like an open book, and knowing that any words except those spoken by Sargent himself would be irrelevant at that moment. Instead, he took down a long German pipe with a china bowl, from the mantel shelf, and filling it with tobacco, seated himself comfortably in a chair and crossed his legs; silent, all the while.

Finally Sargent opened his eyes and looked at the old man without speaking. At last the words came, trembling slightly from his intensity.

"Did you ever convict a man for murder?"

The corners of the old man's mouth twitched; he was so certain that would be the question. In answer he only nodded.

"And was the man hanged?"

He nodded again.

Sargent's voice rose to a higher pitch and broke harshly.

"How could you let it be done, and have any peace afterwards?"

The old man laid his pipe aside and came toward the table, sitting down opposite Sargent.

"I found out that I was in the right. That the man should have been hanged--that it was my duty to see that punishment was inflicted upon him. Anything else would have been an evasion of my duty,--a greater sin than I at first imagined the other was. I know what you are feeling at this moment. Every man who has a conscience and a reverence for God and has chosen criminal law for his profession goes through your experience. There are so many sides to the situation--I doubt if you have thought of but one."

Sargent moved impatiently in his chair. His fingers were thumping nervously on the table all the time.

"Tell me the other side--I can see only one."

The old man leaned forward and met his eyes intently.

"What do you see?"

"'Thou shalt not kill.'"

Felix Houston leaned back in his chair and putting out his hand, drew the old Bible toward him. Placing it on his knees, he turned the pages with the familiarity of one who knew what was written on every one. At last he held down a page, and ran his fingers across it, smoothing out the crumpled, folded edge. "Listen," he said, raising his eyes to Sargent's for a moment. "There are other commands in here, too. Read here--Genesis--'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,' and in Exodus," the pages turned quickly, "'He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death,' and Leviticus, 'Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' and later, in the words of Jesus, recorded by Matthew, 'All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' Is not that enough?" He laid down the book, and met Sargent's glance again. "You see now there are reasons for man making laws with which the life of a murderer can be taken. It is the command of God. It is His law given to us for self-protection."

Sargent shook his head wearily.

"Vengeance is mine," he quoted slowly, in response. "With that, I see no reason for this law of man's. Why should we judge? Why should we decide that a man has no right to live? 'Thou shalt not kill,' is the word spoken by God. There is no evasion of it--I can see only that one interpretation. It is final to me in its brevity. It embraces everything. If Phelps is hanged, it will be the same as if I had killed him myself, alone and unaided. The law back of it means nothing to me. If he is hanged I will be a murderer."

Sargent crouched back in his chair as if to escape the physical punishment his thoughts inflicted upon him. The disappointment caused from the old man's failure to bring him any comfort intensified the despair into which he had sunk.

"Think a moment, Sargent," Judge Houston said, attempting a new line of persuasion. "Think of the good you have done the people by removing such a danger from them. That should be palliation enough to relieve you of any responsibility. Their gratitude to you is wonderful! Do you know, they want to show it in some lasting form; there is already a movement on foot to send you to the Legislature, and if you accept it, I know you will be elected. Boy! you don't realize that your success has been made. Cheer up! Open your eyes to your opportunities. There are not many who make the start you have." Judge Houston grew more and more enthusiastic as he continued. "I had no idea that you could win that case. I only appointed you to give you the experience. But you have shown your genius. That speech has made your start a triumph."

Sargent watched his enthusiasm coldly. A gulf of misunderstanding seemed to be widening between him and his old friend to-night--a gulf in which their sympathy of the past months was counted as nothing. Of all the people in the world Felix Houston was the one Sargent had expected to understand him in this trial. His disappointment grew almost unbearable when he heard praise also coming from his friend's lips.

"A triumph," he murmured sadly. "What is a triumph when its gain means the sacrifice of a man's life?"

"Have you thought of the lives you have probably saved by removing this dangerous man from the country? That should help you a little."

"Was he so harmful? Had he killed any one before? There seemed no proof of it."

"Did you not prove that he had killed one man? Is that not enough?"

"I did not prove anything--legally."

Felix Houston's brows drew together slowly. It was a signal of the end of his patience.

"What did you do then, Sargent?"

"I played a trick on him--the meanest, lowest, most dastardly trick one man ever played on another. There wasn't any law in it. I set myself to work on the man's sympathies; I studied his face all that first day in the courtroom, hunting for the vulnerable point in which to attack him. All that day I could see nothing else but his face, yet I could not find what it was that was there, that I did not recognize. And when I rode home that evening with Natalia, I was telling her about the case, and how hopeless it seemed, and what do you suppose she told me to do? The very thing that I did--make the man confess, himself! She said that I could do that if I wanted to. All that night I lay awake, thinking and thinking of how I could persuade the man to tell his secret. I kept repeating it to myself all through the long hours that I would make him tell, seeing his face before me, always with that inscrutable expression that meant that there was a vulnerable point. I must find it, I kept on saying. I must find it! Then I thought out my speech, realizing as I went over it, that if I went into every detail of the murder, that somewhere in the recital I would find the spot in the man's nature. I found it--you know when. He has a mother. I made him think of her! After the first admission of my power I knew I had the man in my hands. It was all very easy after that. But it was not law, you must admit that. It was playing upon sentiments that are sacred to every human being. I took that advantage of him while he was held before me--forced to listen. He couldn't escape my words. I forced them into his brain. I drove all the vital force that was in me into that man's conscience, and made him speak out. He could not help it--he was powerless. But that is not law, I say. I have no right to send him to the gallows on such a confession. You should have seen that--you will now, I know. It rests with you to help me make my reparation. I used this man to further the gratification of revenge. I would not have gone into the case with such vehemence if the defeat of Jervais had not been back of it. Oh, you do see, then! The sin of it, don't you? But it is true--every word of it. I am keeping back nothing from you. You have told me that you loved me almost as much as you did your son, and you know that I have returned that feeling, aye, more than I ever loved the man who created me only continually to wound me! Will you prove to me that your love is as great as you say? Will you grant me one request that will mean everything to me?"

With his growing excitement, Sargent rose from the chair and placed both hands on Judge Houston's. The old man met his wild, beseeching look calmly. He knew now that he was brought face to face with a situation that might end disastrously, but he did not shirk it. He was calmer than he had ever been in his life.

"I will grant you any request--if it is right, and in my power."

Sargent took a long breath, though not yet one of relief. When he spoke, the words came in a whisper, as if he feared an eavesdropper.

"Release Jacob Phelps!"

For twenty seconds the old copper faced clock on the mantel ticked off the time loudly in the silent room. Then Felix Houston spoke.

"It is not in my power, and even if it were, I would not set at liberty a man whose depredations and robberies have hung over this country for ten years. You have asked me too much, Sargent. Go home and think this matter over, and when you are calmer, more yourself, you will see the exaggerated view you are taking. In the morning you will see everything differently. Your responsibility in the case will have passed from you entirely, and you will see it through the eyes of a sane man--you are hardly that, now."

"In the morning may be too late to think of anything," Sargent answered hurriedly, handing him Jervais' challenge.

Judge Houston read it at a glance and handed it back to him.

"Is that the note that was sent here? I left it on the table."

"Yes. May your man take my answer?"

"Of course. When?"

And without answering, Sargent wrote a few lines at the table, and folding the paper carefully and sealing it, handed it to the slave who was already waiting at the door.

When the man was gone and they were alone again, Sargent stretched out his hands and grasped Judge Houston's.

"Won't you grant me that request?" he said, an expression of pitiful yearning in his eyes. "It may be my last. I should not mind dying if I knew the man were free," he added tentatively.

"Anything else in the world, Sargent," the old man answered brokenly. "Anything else I would do for you."

"There is nothing else that matters," Sargent answered dryly, turning away and reaching for his hat.

"You will come for me in the morning--at what time?"

Judge Houston rested against the table, watching Sargent's every movement intently.

"At four o'clock. The sun rises at five now. I will make all arrangements with the ferry man to take us over to the Louisiana side." He stopped abruptly and looked at the old man standing as firm and as steady as a piece of granite. "Somehow I feel the incongruity of you going with me more forcibly now than ever. Won't it tell against you? Won't it cause some loss of dignity to your position? You said you had always disapproved of duels. It is too much that you are giving up for me. It may be that I shall pass out of your life to-morrow, and for the few months that we have been together--it seems too much. I know I've disappointed you--some day perhaps you'll understand my reasons. Somehow, though, I couldn't help it--I must be deformed in mind as in body!"

The old gentleman made a step toward him, and steadied Sargent's trembling figure with his firm arms.

"When you hear what I have done to-night," he continued, brokenly evading the keen blue eyes bent upon him, "I believe you will understand."

Felix Houston drew Sargent closer to him. His firm arm was about the young fellow's shoulders, and he was reading his face intently for some meaning to the last words.

"Sargent, boy--look at me---what do you mean?"

Suddenly Sargent straightened himself and answered the other's look firmly.

"I don't know yet. I haven't quite decided. I shall be back here at four o'clock."

*CHAPTER VII*

*ONE MEANS OF ESCAPE*

Outside the night shone clear and brilliant. Sargent stopped when he had passed out into the street, and looked up through the canopy of leaves to where a stretch of heavens glowed with the impenetrable purple of the night. Across the infinitude of space a brilliant star suddenly shot, leaving a trail of white fire in its wake. He stood there a few minutes, his face uplifted to the calm beauty of the sky, his lips moving in prayer.

When he began walking again a strange quiet had settled over all his features and in his eyes burned the light of determination.

He walked rapidly, for though the moon had not yet risen, the night was brilliant with the beautiful, translucent light of the stars. The dwellings were dark, not a light glowed in a window; the town had sunk into deep slumber.

He stopped at the tavern long enough to write a few words to Captain Mentdrop about the duel, and once more hurried out into the night.

He passed the courthouse again. This time he did not quail, or pass it with averted eyes, but looked at it with the expression of one who gives thanks to something which has shown him the right path, be it ever so hard and narrow to traverse.

Walking on, he stood at last before the small jail. It was a one story brick building in which the sunken bars across the windows shone sombrely in the clarity of the night. Beyond its suggestion of imprisonment, there was a deeper and more lasting effect of utter dreariness and despair, for the building stood on a plot of ground in which neither a tree nor a shrub grew.

Without a moment of hesitation Sargent went up the path to the door, and lifted the heavy knocker. Its report rang out on the quiet night like some death signal, reverberating within, seemingly an hundred times. Then came the heavy steps of the keeper, the sound of huge bolts sliding out of fastenings, the clang of a chain, and at last Sargent stood within the dimly lit corridor.

"Jacob Phelps sent for me. Is it possible for me to see him now?" he said rapidly, striving in vain to hide his anxiety.

The jailer held his lantern close to Sargent's face, and inspected him slowly.

"Have you an order from the sheriff?" he asked.

"No."

"It's against rules. I can't let you in."

"I know it is irregular, but this is my only chance to see him. I am going away early in the morning. I only want to speak a few words with him. My name is Sargent Everett--"

"The lawyer that made the speech to-day!" the jailer exclaimed. "Well, sir, it's an honour to know you. I never heard tell of a speech like the one you made, sir. No wonder Phelps wanted to see you."

Sargent turned away quickly to hide the look of suffering on his face. Was he never to hear the end of that speech! Would it go down to the grave with him! Suddenly he remembered his words to Judge Houston--"It will be the speech of my life." Ah! verily it was so!

"Will you let me see him?" he asked again.

"Well--" the fellow debated. "I reckon it'll be all right since it's you, Mr. Everett. But it's against rules, you know."

He led the way down the corridor, Sargent following him closely. At the far end, the jailer turned toward him, eying his slight figure and halting gait deprecatingly.

"Shall I leave the door open and wait for you out here? He's a mighty tough customer--at least he was up to to-day. He's been as quiet as a lamb since they brought him back from the courthouse. I don't know if you'll be safe in there with him, for he's lots bigger than you. He might take a notion to hurt you."

Sargent moved to the door impatiently. "I do not fear him, and you need not wait at the door. Bar it on the outside, and do not come until I call for you. Now--let me in."

The jailer put his hand on the bolts--then hesitated.

"Here--I have it. Put this pistol in your pocket--so--and you can keep him at a safe distance. Don't let him see it unless he comes at you--it's as much as my place is worth. There you are--now!"

The bolt slid back, the chain fell to the floor, and Sargent passed through the opened door.

The room was small, its whitewashed walls giving out a dank odour. A narrow bunk, a table and chair were the only furnishings. One window, covered with bars, let in the light of the brilliant sky dotted with innumerable stars. At the table, scribbling on some coarse paper in the feeble glow of a candle, sat the prisoner--Jacob Phelps.

He looked up as Sargent entered; then, as if slowly recognizing him, he rose from the table and stood looking at him with the dull expression which had come into his eyes during the trial.

"So you've come, have you? I kinder thought you would."

Sargent met his glance steadily. "You said you wanted to see me."

Suddenly Phelps moved to the door and tried the bolt. It was barred securely. Then he moved back quickly and stood close to Sargent, catching hold of both his arms.