The Bondboy Part 54

Mrs. Newbolt justified Joe's plea by sitting quietly while the prosecutor continued. But her interruption had acted like an explosion in the train of his ideas; he was so much disconcerted by it that he finished rather tamely, reserving his force, as people understood, for his closing speech.

Hammer rose in consequence, and plunged into the effort of his life. He painted the character of Isom Chase in horrible guise; he pointed out his narrowness, his wickedness, his cruelty, his quickness to lift his hand. He wept and he sobbed, and splashed tears all around him.

It was one of the most satisfying pieces of public oratory ever heard in Shelbyville, from the standpoint of sentiment, and the view of the unschooled. But as a legal and logical argument it was as foolish and futile as Hammer's own fat tears. He kept it up for an hour, and he might have gone on for another if his tears had not given out. Without tears, Hammer's eloquence dwindled and his oratory dried.

Mrs. Newbolt blessed him in her heart, and the irresponsible and vacillating public wiped its cheeks clean of its tears and settled down to have its emotions warped the other way. Everybody said that Hammer had done well. He had made a fine effort, it showed what they had contended for all along, that Hammer had it naturally in him, and was bound to land in congress yet.

When the prosecutor resumed for the last word he seemed to be in a vicious temper. He seemed to be prompted by motives of revenge, rather than justice. If he had been a near relative of the deceased, under the obligation of exacting life for life with his own hands, he could not have shown more vindictive personal resentment against the accused. He reverted to Joe's reservation in his testimony.

"There is no question in my mind, gentlemen of the jury," said he, "that the silence behind which this defendant hides is the silence of guilt, and that silence brands him blacker than any confession that his tongue could make.

"'Words pa.s.sed between us,' and 'it was between him and me.' That, gentlemen of the jury, is the explanation this defendant gives, the only, the weak, the obviously dishonest explanation, that he ever has offered, or that the kindly admonishment of this court could draw from his lips. Guilt sits on his face; every line of his base countenance is a confession; every brutal snarl from his reluctant tongue is testimony of his evil heart. He was a thief, and, when he was caught, he murdered.

'Out of his own mouth he has uttered his condemnation,' and there is but one penalty fitting this hideous crime--the penalty of death!

"Never before has the fair name of our county been stained by such an atrocious crime; never before has there been such a conspiracy between the guilty to defeat the ends of justice in this moral and respected community. I call upon you, gentlemen of the jury, for the safety of our households and the sanct.i.ty of our hearths, to bring in your verdict of guilty under the indictment.

"It is a solemn and awful thing to stand here in the presence of the Almighty and ask the life of one of his creatures, made by Him in His own image and endowed by Him with reason and superiority above all else that moves on the earth or in the waters under it. But this man, Joe Newbolt, has debased that image and abused that reason and superiority which raises him above the beasts of the field. He has murdered a defenseless old man; he has, by that act and deed, forfeited his right to life and liberty under the law."

The prosecutor made one of his effective pauses. There was the stillness of midnight in the crowded court-room. The sound of das.h.i.+ng rain was loud on the window-panes, the hoa.r.s.e voice of the gray old elm which combed the wind with its high-flung branches, was like the distant groan of the sea.

In that aching silence Ollie Chase turned suddenly, as if she had heard someone call her name. She started, her white face grew whiter. But n.o.body seemed conscious of her presence, except the prosecutor, who wheeled upon her and leveled his accusing finger at her where she sat.

There was the bearing of sudden and reckless impulse in his act. He surely had not meditated that bold challenge of one who had pa.s.sed under his merciless hand, and was now, according to all accepted procedure, beyond his reach and his concern. But Sam Lucas did that unusual thing.

He stood pointing at her, his jaw trembling as if the intensity of his pa.s.sion had palsied his tongue.

"Gentlemen of the jury, what part this woman played in that dark night's work the world may never know," said he. "But the world is not blind, and its judgments are usually justified by time. This woman, Ollie Chase, and this defendant have conspired to hold silence between them, in what hope, to what unholy end, G.o.d alone knows. But who will believe the weak and improbable story this woman has told on the witness-stand?

Who is so blind that he cannot see the stain of her infidelity and the ghastly blight of that midnight shadow upon her quaking soul?"

He turned from her abruptly. Hammer partly rose, as if to enter an objection. He seemed to reconsider it, and sat down. Ollie shrank against her mother's shoulders, trembling. The older woman, fierce as a dragon in the sudden focus of the crowd's attention and eyes, fixed in one s.h.i.+fting sweep from the prosecuting attorney to her daughter, put her arm about Ollie and comforted her with whispered words.

The prosecutor proceeded, solemnly:

"I tell you, gentlemen, that these two people, Ollie Chase and Joseph Newbolt, alone in that house that night, alone in that house for two days before this tragedy darkened it, before the blood of gray old Isom Chase ran down upon its threshold, these two conspired in their guilt to hide the truth.

"If this woman would open her lips, if this woman would break the seal of this guilty compact and speak, the mystery of this case would dissolve, and the heroic romance which this defendant is trying to put over the squalid facts of his guilt would turn out only a sordid story of midnight l.u.s.t and robbery. If conscience would trouble this woman to speak, gentlemen of the jury--but she has no conscience, and she has no heart!"

He turned again to Ollie, savagely; her mother covered her with her arm, as if to protect her from a blow.

"There she cowers in her guilty silence, in what hope G.o.d alone knows, but if she would speak----"

"_I will speak!_" Ollie cried.

CHAPTER XXI

OLLIE SPEAKS

Ollie's voice, low and steady in earnest determination, broke the current of his denunciation as a knife severs a straining cord. The suddenness of her declaration almost made the prosecutor reel. She was sitting up, straight and outwardly calm, pus.h.i.+ng her cloak and other detached belongings away from her with an unconscious movement of disenc.u.mbering herself for some desperate leap.

"I'll tell everything--if you'll let me--now," said she, rising to her feet.

She was white and cold, but steady, and sternly resolute. The prosecutor had not expected that; his challenge had been only a spectacular play for effect. Her offer to speak left him mentally groping behind himself for a support. It would have been different if he had been certain of what she desired to say. As she stood before him there, bloodless, and in such calm of outward aspect that it was almost hysterical, he did not know whether she was friend or foe.

Joe had not expected it; the hundreds of spectators had not looked for that, and Hammer was as much surprised as a ponderous, barber-minded man could be. Yet he was the first, of all of them there, to get his wits in hand. The prosecutor had challenged her, and, he argued, what she had to say must be in justification of both herself and Joe. He stood up quickly, and demanded that Ollie Chase be put under oath and brought to the witness-stand.

Ollie's mother had hold of her hand, looking up into her face in great consternation, begging her to sit down and keep still. In general, people were standing, and Uncle Posen Spratt was worming the big end of his steer-horn trumpet between shoulders of men and headgear of women to hear what he could not see.

Judge Maxwell commanded order. The prosecuting attorney began to protest against the fulfilment of the very thing that, with so much feeling and earnestness, he had demanded but a minute before.

"Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your honor----" he began.

Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving look.

"It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor," said he. "Let that woman come forward and be sworn."

Hammer went eagerly to the a.s.sistance of Ollie, opening the little gate in the railing for her officiously, putting his palm under her elbow in his sustaining fas.h.i.+on. The clerk administered the oath; Ollie dropped her hand wearily at her side.

"I lied the other day," said she, as one surrendering at the end of a hopeless defense, "and I'm tired of hiding the truth any more."

Joe Newbolt was moved by a strange feeling of mingled thankfulness and regret. Tears had started to his eyes, and were coursing down his face, unheeded and unchecked. The torture of the past days and weeks, the challenge of his honor, the doubt of his sincerity; the rough a.s.saults of the prosecuting attorney, the palpable unfriendliness of the people--none of these things ever had drawn from him a tear. But this simple act of justice on the part of Ollie Chase moved the deep waters of his soul.

His mother had taken his hand between her rough palms, and was chafing it, as if to call back its warmth and life. She was not looking at her son, for her faith had not departed from him for one moment, and would not have diminished if they had condemned him under the accusation. Her eyes were on Ollie's face, her lips were murmuring beneath her breath:

"Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the Lord, thank the Lord!"

Ollie had settled in the witness-chair again, in the midst of her wide-skirted mourning habit, as on that other day. Joe Newbolt prayed in his heart for the mitigation of public censure, and for strength to sustain her in her hour of sacrifice.

That Ollie had come forward to save him--unasked, unexpected--was like the comfort of a cloak against the wintry wind. The public believed that she was going to "own up" to it now, and to clinch the case against Joe.

Some of them began to make mental calculations on the capacity of the jail yard, and to lay plans for securing pa.s.ses to the hanging.

Hammer stepped forward to question the witness, and the prosecuting attorney sat down, alert and ready to interpose in case things should start the wrong way. He had lost sight of justice completely, after the fixed habit of his kind, in his eagerness to advance his own prospects by securing the conviction of the accused.

Ollie sat facing Judge Maxwell, who had turned in his swivel-chair; moved out of his bearing of studious concentration, which was his usual characteristic on the bench.

"Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and take your own time for it," said Hammer, kindly patronizing.

"I don't want Joe to suffer for me," she said, letting her sad eyes rest on him for a moment. "What he kept back wasn't for his own sake. It was for mine."

"Yes; go on, Mrs. Chase," said Hammer as she hesitated there.

"Joe didn't shoot Isom. That happened just the way he's said. I know all about it, for I was there. Joe didn't know anything about that money.

I'll tell you about that, too."

"Now, your honor," began the prosecutor complainingly, "it seems to me that the time and place for evidence of this nature has gone by. This witness has testified already, and to an entirely different set of facts. I don't know what influences have been at work to induce her to frame up a new story, but----"

"Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor," said the judge, "but it must not be allowed to obscure the human rights at hazard in this case. Let the witness proceed."