THE VERDICT.
| 'Tis not ever |
| The justice and the truth o' th' question carries |
| The due o' th' verdict with it.—Shakespeare. |
At an early hour the next morning the court was opened, the Judges resumed their seats, and the accused was conducted back to her place.
Ishmael Worth opened for the defence.
I shall not even attempt to give so much as an epitome of his speech. I should never be able to do justice to the logic, eloquence, pathos, and power of his oratory. I shall only indicate that the points upon which he dwelt most were, the magnanimous nature of his client, which rendered her utterly incapable of committing the atrocious crime with which she stood charged; the fatal fallibility of circumstantial evidence, which he illustrated by direct reference to many recorded cases, well-known to the legal profession, in which parties had been convicted and executed, under the strongest possible circumstantial evidence, and had afterwards been discovered to have been guiltless; the facility with which a murderer might have concealed himself in that bedroom occupied by the deceased on the night of the murder, have eluded the search of the sleepy nurse, and after committing his crime, being frightened by the screams of his awakened victim, should have escaped through the window and slammed the shutter to, from the outside, when it would fasten itself with its spring bolt; the perfect naturalness of the circumstance that the accused, on hearing her guest scream, should have flown down those communicating stairs to her assistance, and should have drawn from her wounded bosom the dagger left there by the flying murderer. This, and much more than can even be touched upon here, he said, and then proceeded to call witnesses for the defence.
These were some of the old friends and neighbors of the accused lady, who warmly bore witness to the generosity and nobility of her nature, which placed her in their estimation so far above the possibility of committing a crime so heinous.
Then came the white servants of her household, who described the situation of Rosa Blondelle's rooms on the first floor of Black Hall; the easy entrance into them from the grounds below, and the insecure spring fastenings of the windows, which might be opened from without by a thin knife passed under the latch and lifted.
All felt how small the amount of material was, out of which even the most learned and eloquent advocate could make a defence for Sybil Berners.
The examination of the witnesses for the defence closed.
Mr. Sheridan then made his last effort for his client, and was followed by Mr. Worth, both of whom exerted their utmost faculties in the hopeless cause of their unhappy client.
But ah! no eloquence of theirs, of any one's, could do away with the damning evidence against the accused lady.
The State's attorney, in a final address to the jury, pointed out this fact, and then sat down.
The venerable Judge Joseph Ruthven arose to sum up the evidence and charge the jury. We know that he believed in the innocence of the pure and noble young lady, whom he had known from her earliest infancy. Such a belief under such circumstances must have swayed the judgement and affected the action of the justest judge under the sun.
Judge Ruthven palpably leaned to the side of the prisoner. After summing up the evidence for the prosecution rather briefly and coldly, he urged upon the jury the value of a good name in the case of an accused party; the excellent name of the accused lady; the unreliability of circumstantial evidence; the fallibility even of the testimony of the dying, when such testimony was given in the excitement of terror and the agony of death; of how such testimony, however sincerely given and believed in, had often been utterly disproved by subsequent events; and finally, that if a single doubt, however slight, remained in their minds of the guilt of the prisoner, it was their bounden duty to give her the benefit of that doubt by a full acquittal. And so, praying Divine Providence to direct their counsels, he dismissed them to deliberate on their verdict.
The jury left the room in charge of a sheriff's officer.
And then the tongues of the spectators were loosened. The charge of the judge had given great offence.
"It amounts to a positive instruction to the jury to acquit the prisoner!" fiercely whispered one malcontent.
"And when the testimony has so clearly convicted her!" added another.
"Nothing but partiality! He and her father were old cronies," put in a third.
"A partial judge ought to be impeached!" growled a fourth.
And so on the disapprobation rumbled through the court-room in thunder, not loud, but deep.
And then all became still as death.
Meanwhile the judge sat calmly on the bench, the only evidence of his strongly suppressed anxiety was the extreme paleness of his venerable face. What was passing in his mind during this time of awful stillness and waiting, in which the earth seemed arrested in her orbit, the sun stopped in his course? The dread question, should he, with more than Roman courage, be obliged to pass sentence of death on that child of his old friend, that young high-born, refined, and beautiful woman, whom from the depths of his soul he believed to be perfectly innocent?
Meanwhile Sybil Berners, her face bloodless, her frame almost pulseless, breathless as with suspended animation, leaned upon her husband's breast and waited for the verdict that was to give her life or death.
Both pale as herself, her husband and her friend sat, the first on her right side and the second on her left, as they sit by the dying, supporting her as best they might, her husband's arm around her waist, her friend's hand clasping hers.
The hour wore slowly on. The room grew dark. But the judge did not adjourn the court. He thought, most likely, it was better for all concerned to end the agony that night if possible.
At length the lamps were lighted, and their beams fell upon the pallid group of friends, upon whom the doom of death seemed already to have descended; and further on, upon the "sea of heads" that now filled the court-room and—waited for the verdict; for the crowd had greatly increased since the commencement of the trial.
At length the hush of silence was stirred by a motion near the door of the jury-room.
Sybil's weary head still rested on her husband's bosom; he gathered her in a closer embrace, that she might not look up until she should be compelled to do so.
She was too inexperienced to know what that little stir that moved the stillness meant.
The door of the jury-room was thrown open by the deputy-sheriff, and the jury filed into the court, and stood in a group near the bench.
All hearts stood still. The face of the venerable judge turned a shade paler.
The clerk of arraigns arose, and addressing the jury, inquired:
"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?"
"We have," solemnly answered the foreman, on the part of his colleagues.
"Prisoner, stand up and look upon the jury," proceeded the clerk, addressing Sybil.
"Rise, my darling, rise!" said the heart-broken husband of the lady, as he helped her to her feet.
Sybil stood up, still leaning on his arm.
"Look on those men there!" whispered Lyon Berners.
"Where? Where?" inquired Sybil, in perplexity, for the court-room was but dimly lighted, and her brain was half dazed with horror.
"There, my darling, there!" muttered Lyon Berners, pointing to the jury.
"Prisoner, look upon the jury!" repeated the clerk.
Sybil turned her glazing eyes towards the group.
"Jurymen, look upon the prisoner!" continued the clerk.
They looked, and some among them must have seen that the doom they were about to pronounce in verdict could never be carried into effect.
The clerk proceeded.
"How say you, gentlemen of the jury; is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the felony laid to her charge?"