A jury was asked for and Justice Robinson, calling up some of the idle negroes who hung about his office, selected five elderly darkeys, all of them as black as crows. To these five jurors the magistrate added “the distinguished counsel from across the river,” whom he graciously requested to consent to serve as foreman. In the interest of justice the request was complied with.
Grant, the aggrieved, appeared as prosecuting witness, “tore a passion to tatters” in describing the sudden and furious onslaught made upon him by the black Democrat, and rantingly demanded justice. Paul simply told the story of the attack made upon him by the Grant family and admitted his retaliation, which he held was justifiable, and the jury withdrew to a vacant room nearby which was indicated as the place of deliberation.
The foreman was given a primitive split white-oak chair with a rawhide seat, while his five dusky associates ranged themselves like roosting buzzards upon a teetering bench, whose supports, two short boards sawed into the semblance of legs at the bottom, were placed so close together that the utmost skill was required on the part of the sitters to maintain their equilibrium, for if the central section rose, both end men had to sit tight until they could rise simultaneously, else the laggard would be in jeopardy.
And now the jurors were ready for the case. Paul, having beaten his man fairly and in righteous retaliation, was entitled to an acquittal and to this end the foreman directed his efforts. As a preliminary, Paul was called to the shanty window, provided with sixty cents, and despatched to Arnold’s store for a quart of corn whiskey. Upon his return with the pallid pop-skull, there was an excited shifting of five seats on the shaky bench and five pairs of eagerly expectant eyes rested their kindly regard upon the messenger of Bacchus as he withdrew, leaving his fate in their hands.
The lone and crafty Caucasian, playing Iago to five Othellos, picked out a gorilla-like old codger on the near end of the bench as the dominant personality among them, and extending the flask told him to take a drink and serve his fellows. Hacklus Manigo jumped up with such alacrity, and was followed so quickly by the negroes who sat next him, that the near end of the bench, relieved of their combined weight, flew up, and the two remaining jurors tumbled ignominiously and indignantly to the floor. The grumbling of the fallen and the derisive guffawing of the risen, ceased suddenly, however, as eight saucered and fascinated eyes fastened upon old Manigo’s Adam’s apple which moved up and down his neck in perfect unison with the “glug, glug,” of the liquid flowing so easily down his throat. The drinker’s ocular and auricular demonstration of hydraulics was too much for his associates, who cried out in indignant protest. “Tek’care, man! We’own dey een da’ t’ing!” “Cap’n, please, suh, mek’um tek ’e mout’ off da’ bottle. ’E gwine drink eb’ry Gawd’ drap!”
Manigo, having absorbed almost one-fourth of the contents of the flask, gave it into the nearest of the eager hands held out to receive it, drew his coat sleeve with a great swipe across his wet and glistening mouth, gave a grateful grunt, “umh, da’ t’ing good! Tengky, Boss, tengky, suh!” accompanied by an elaborate scrape of the foot and a low obeisance, and took his seat in the center of the bench, where he was soon flanked by the four, whose watchful eyes, each upon the other, had not permitted their attainment of Manigo’s state of exaltation.
“Now, Manigo, and you boys,” said Iago. “This is a plain story. Three or four yellow men double-team a black man and beat him up. He doesn’t take them to court but waits his chance, and when he catches one of these yellow men away from his gang, why the black man beats him to pay him back for what the yellow man helped to do to him. Now, that’s what Paul did to this free-issue yellow fellow Grant. Paul is black like all of you. Do you want to send him to jail for laying hands on a mulatto, just because mulattoes think themselves better than you blacks?”
“Great Gawd, no, suh!” shouted Manigo, springing up. Turning half way round out of respect to the foreman, he alternately jumped in the air and squatted like a gigantic frog, while he whirled his arms and harangued his fellow blacks, cutting his eye around now and then for a nod of approval from Iago. “De debble! Punkin-skin’ nigguh fuh beat black nigguh en’ black nigguh ent fuh beat’um back, enty? Oonuh ebbuh yeddy ’bout shishuh t’ing sence you bawn? Me fuh ’low yalluh nigguh fuh knock me en’ me yent fuh knock’um back! No, man! Uh knock’um ef uh dead!”
“Yaas, man, knock’um, knock’um!” came the cries of approval as old Hacklus, having put up his yellow man of straw, leaped about as he proceeded to bowl him over.
“Uh yent fuh wait ’tell ’e knock me fus’. Uh gwine knock’um befo’ ’e hice ’e han’! Uh knock’um een ’e yeye, uh kick’um on ’e shin, alltwo one time. Den uh butt’um een ’e belly. Uh double’um up ’cause ’e too swonguh, ’e too ’laagin’! Cap’n, who dis yalluh nigguh nyuse to blonx to een slabery time?” he asked the foreman.