Dockbridge had awakened, and, lounging before his table, was trying to get up a case for the morrow. The Judge had gone home for dinner. One by one the court attendants had strayed away, coming back to push open the heavy door, and, after a furtive glance at the empty bench, as silently to depart.
Below in the stifling pen, alone behind the bars, James Graham sat staring vacantly at the stained cement floor. A savage rage surged through him. Curse them! That infernal Judge had not given him half a chance. Once more he recalled that day when he had stepped out into the sunlight a free man. Again he saw his iron bed, his cobbling bench, his coarse food, his hated stripes. He choked at the thought of them. Only two months before he had been at liberty. Think of it! Good clothes, good food, pleasure! God, what a fool! A dull pain worked through his body; he remembered that he had not eaten since seven that morning.
Outside in the corridor the keeper was smoking a cigar. The fumes of it drifted in and mingled with the stench of the pen. It almost nauseated him. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The act brought rushing back the memories of his childhood, and of how, every night, he would lay his head upon his mother's knee and say, "Have I been a good boy to-day?" A sob shook him, and he pressed closer against the wall.
A sound of moving feet roused him suddenly. A door swung open, shut again, and voices came with a draught of air from the corridor.
The keeper waiting outside stirred and stood up, looking regretfully at his cigar.
"Get up there, you!"
The prisoner obeyed perfunctorily, and followed the officer heavily up the stairs and down the dirty passage to the court-room. Outside, he shrank from entering. Those eyes—those eyes! That hard, pitiless Judge! But he was pushed roughly forward. Then his old pugnacity returned; he set his teeth, and entered.
He trudged around the room and stopped at the bar before the clerk. On his right sat the twelve silent men. On the bench the white-haired Judge was gazing at him with sad but penetrating eyes.
It was different from the mellow glow of the afternoon. They were all so still—like ghosts—and all around, all about him! He wanted to shout out at them, "Speak! for God's sake, speak!" But something stifled him. The overwhelming power of the law held him speechless.
The clerk rose without looking at the prisoner.