“Oh, Father, Thou, who knoweth all things, knowest that this is not true of me; Thou who canst do all things, will yet deliver me from this death!”
But was she the greatest sufferer there! Ah, no! He who stood behind her, hearing this terrible charge, without the power of contradicting her accuser—seeing all eyes fixed in horror upon her without the privilege of saying one word in her defence, and witnessing her distress without the means of consoling it—suffered more, though he bore up better than she did.
Upon our simple family party from the Anchorage the effect of the attorney-general’s opening address was very profound.
“Dear, dear, dear!” sighed old Mrs. Stilton, whose simple mind received every word uttered by that high dignitary as gospel truth, because how could such a learned gentleman be mistaken? “Dear, dear, dear! what a young devil she is to be sure!”
“Yes—a real young Indian demon! a genuine little cobra-di-capello—an infant Thug! They’ll be sure to hang her, that’s one comfort!” said the admiral.
“It is false! The attorney-general is no better than a licensed slanderer! I hate him! and I wish he was on trial!” cried Annella, bursting into tears of rage and grief.
But the clerk was calling the first witness for the Crown, and all eyes and ears were directed to the words of that functionary.
The evidence for the prosecution was essentially the same as that elicited at the coroner’s inquest and at the magistrate’s investigation. It need not be repeated in detail here. It is sufficient to say that the first witnesses examined were the medical men who had assisted at the autopsy of the dead bodies, and the analysis of the tamarind-water. Their testimony clearly proved that the deceased had died from the effects of ignatia, and that the fatal drug had been administered in their drink.
And the severest cross-examination of these witnesses by the counsel for the prisoner only served the more strongly to confirm the facts, and the more deeply to impress them upon the minds of the jury.
“And thus,” said the counsel for the Crown, “the primary item in the prosecution—to wit, that the deceased came to their death by poison—may be considered as established. Our next care shall be to prove that this poison was feloniously administered by the prisoner at the bar.”