“Liar!” shouted Brush, springing up, in high excitement, as soon as he could recover from the surprise and confusion into which this bold and unexpected charge had thrown him.
“The man's insane—evidently insane, your honors!” cried Stearns, who, in his anxiety to shield his friend Brush, thought not of the effect of such a remark.
“I thank the attorney for the government for that admission, may it please the court,” said Knights, rising, with a sarcastic glance at Stearns. “I may wish to make use of it.”
“Are you counsel for the prisoner, sir?” sharply demanded the other.
“I am, sir,” coolly replied Knights; “and you may find, before we get through the trial, that what the prisoner has said, as much out of place as it was, is not the only truth to be developed. But before the case proceeds any further, I offer a plea to the jurisdiction of this court, and at once submit, whether a man can be tried here for an offence alleged to have been committed in another county, without a special order from the governor for that purpose.”
“That order is obtained and on file, sir. So that learned bubble is burst, as will all the rest you can raise in favor of the miserable wretch you have stooped to defend,” said Stevens, exultingly. “Mr. Clerk, pass up that order to the court.”
“Are you satisfied now, Mr. Knights?” asked Sabin, with undignified feeling, after glancing at the order which had been laid before the judges. “Mr. Stearns, proceed with the cause.”
But that court, on whom the subservient attorney and his corrupt and arrogant friend depended to convict an innocent man of an infamous crime, that a private and nefarious object might thereby be enforced—that court were now destined to be arrested in their career of judicial oppression before they had time to add another stain to their already blackened characters: for, at this moment, a deep and piercing groan, issuing from one of the prison-rooms beneath, resounded through the building so fearfully distinct, as to cause every individual of the assembly to start, and even to bring the judges and officers of the court to a dead pause in their proceedings. A moment of death-like silence ensued; when another and a sharper groan of anguish, bursting evidently from the same lips, and swelling up to the highest compass of the human voice, and ending in a prolonged screech of mortal agony, rang through the apartment, sending a thrill of horror to the very hearts of the appalled multitude!
“Who? What? For God's sake, what is that?” exclaimed a dozen eager and trembling voices at once, as nearly the whole assembly started to their feet, and stood with amazed and perplexed countenances, inquiringly gazing at each other.
“Don't your consciences tell you that?” exclaimed the prisoner, Herriot, in a loud, fearless voice, running his stern, indignant eye over the court, its officers, and leading partisans around the bar. “Don't your consciences tell you what it was? Then I will! It was the death-screech of the poor murdered French, whose tortured spirit, now beyond the reach of your power, went out with that fearful cry which has just assailed your guilty ears!”