BOOK III.
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.
XXVII.
THE GREAT TRIAL.
Othello.—What dost thou think?
Iago.— Think, my lord?
Othello.—By heav'n, he echoes me.
As if there was some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown.—Othello.
SIBLEY was in a stir. Sibley was the central point of interest for the whole country. The great trial was in progress and the curiosity of the populace knew no bounds.
In a room of the hotel sat our two detectives. They had just come from the court-house. Both seemed inclined to talk, though both showed an indisposition to open the conversation. A hesitation lay between them; a certain thin vail of embarrassment that either one would have found it hard to explain, and yet which sufficed to make their intercourse a trifle uncertain in its character, though Hickory's look had lost none of its rude good-humor, and Byrd's manner was the same mixture of easy nonchalance and quiet self-possession it had always been.