Bylor cast a glance at the windows, each with its great white image upon the floor below; at the dim faces about him; at the lamps, dull and yellow, making the moonlight seem more pallid and vaguely blue. He threw himself upon the bench, and for a long time was silent.
“Look hyar,” said Jerry Price, “it hev jes’ got down ter this,—harnt or no harnt. Ef Lethe Sayles seen Tad, Mink never killed him, an’ hev ter be acquitted. Ef Lethe Sayles seen Tad’s harnt, Mink killed him whilst doin’ a unlawful act, an’ he hev ter go ter the pen’tiary fur involuntary manslaughter, ez the jedge ’lows sech be a felony.”
The wrangle over the question, which bristled with difficulties enough, began anew. They were even more illogical and irritable than before. They were utterly unused to debate, to reason. The mental strain of laboriously applying their attention to each detail, striving to master circumstance and argument, throughout the two days during which the case had been tried twice before them, had resulted in a certain degree of prostration of their faculties. The singular surprise in the evidence and the sudden death of one of their number had unnerved them all, more or less. Being ignorant men, untrained to discriminate and differentiate, while they could accept the strange occurrences which the attorney-general had brought to their knowledge, they were not able to perceive and apply the scientific explanations. And in fact many of these were lame and inadequate. They had heard these seemingly supernatural instances from a man of education and acumen, and it had fallen to their lot to probe the probabilities, and possibilities, and decide an important question based upon them. They were no nearer a conclusion when Ben Doaks, who had been sitting with his arms folded, silently meditating for a time, broke out abruptly, “That’s it! Tad’s harnt kem back ’kase his bones ain’t buried.”
Bylor once more started up. “Who tole ye that? Who said it fust?”
“I dunno,” replied Ben Doaks quietly. “Some o’ them boys.”
“They never!” cried Bylor. “I hev been listening ter every one. Some o’ ye answers the words o’ a man who never speaks aloud! Thar’s a harnt on this jury! I know it! I feel it!” He stood up at his full height, trembling like a leaf. He was in a nervous panic. “Gentlemen, we hev got”—he faltered at the name—“him with us yet. Thar’s thirteen men on this jury. For Gawd’s sake, let’s go down an’ tell the jedge we can’t agree. I’ll see Rood d’rec’ly, an’ ye will too.”
“Laws-a-massy!” cried old Beames, interested for the first time in aught save his cattle. “I’ll make a break an’ run”—he did not say where, the obdurate officer being on the other side of the door. He too rose, agitated, his toothless jaw shaking. “I couldn’t abide ter see him, like he looked las’ night!”
“Thar’s thirteen men on the jury. Thar’s no use denyin’ it,” said the foreman, “whether Pete Rood’s sperit’s in the panel or no.”
A great shadow suddenly flapped awkwardly across the floor. Every man of them started. But it was only the owl they had heard in the distance, now flying past the window. The situation was not more cheerful when the ill-omened bird settled itself on the branch of the hickory-tree, and shrilled its nerve-thrilling cry and convulsively chuckled aloud.
The foreman rose, too. “Thar’s no use a-tryin’,” he said: “we can’t agree, an’ we hev got a right ter disagree. Le’s go down an’ tell the jedge, an’ git discharged. I ain’t easy shook, but this hyar whole case hev been powerful cur’ous, an’ I hev mighty nigh petered out.”