BANK-STOCK AT THE BAR.
The Court of Ten Millions was once more in session. The judge was once more in his seat; his form enveloped in the coat with many capes, his features shadowed by the hat with ample brim. But the beautiful Esther was no longer on his left, nor the giant negro on his right. The great statesman, with the somber brow and masquerade attire of Roderick Borgia, no longer sat in the seat of the criminal. The scene was altogether changed, although the candle on the table still shed its beams around that room, whose black hangings were fringed with gold, and whose gloomy ceiling represented a stormy sky, with the sun struggling among its clouds.
In the seat of the criminal sat Israel Yorke, the financier; his diminutive form, clad in the scarlet Turkish jacket and blue trowsers, contrasting somewhat oddly with his business-like face, and with the general appearance of the scene. Israel was perplexed, for he shifted uneasily in the chair and clasped its arms with his hands, while his ferret-like eyes, now peering above, now below, but never through the glasses of his spectacles, roved incessantly from side to side. There sat the silent judge, under the gloomy canopy, his head bowed on his breast. There was the black table, on which stood the solitary candle, and over which were scattered, an inkstand, pen and paper, a book, and sundry other volumes, looking very much like ledger and day-book. On one side of the table, ranged against the wall, were six sturdy fellows, attired in coarse garments, with crape over their faces; and each man held a club in his brawny hand. And on the opposite side, also ranged against the wall like statues, were six more sturdy fellows, each one grasping a club with his strong right arm. They were dumb as stone; only their hard breathing could be heard;—evidently men of toil, who, on occasion, in a good cause, can strike a blow that will be felt.
Israel did not like this scene. A few moments since, kneeling beside a beautiful girl, whose young loveliness was helpless and in his power;—and now, a prisoner in this nightmare sort of place, with the judge before him, and six sturdy fellows on either hand, waiting to do the judge's bidding! The contrast was too violent. Israel thought so; and—Israel felt anything but comfortable.
"Do they mean to murder me in this dismal den?" he ejaculated to himself. "Really, this way of doing business is exceedingly unbusiness-like. What would they say in Wall street to a scene like this?"
Here the voice of the judge was heard through the dead stillness:
"Israel Yorke, you are about to be put on trial for your crimes."
"My crimes?" ejaculated the little man, bounding from his seat. "Crimes!—What crimes have I committed?"
There, outspoke the sense of injured innocence! To be sure—what crimes had he committed? Had he ever stabbed a man, or put another man's name to paper, or stolen a loaf of bread? No,—indignantly—No! Israel Yorke was above all that. But how many robbers had he made, in the course of his career, by his banking speculations? how many forgers? how many murderers? how many honest men had he flung into the felon's cell? how many pure women had he transformed into walkers of the public streets? Ah! these are questions which Israel Yorke had rather not answer.
"Yes, your crimes, committed through a long course of years; not with the bravery and boldness of the highway robber, but with the cowardice and low cunning of the sneak and swindler, who robs within the letter of the law. Crimes committed, not upon the wealthy and the strong, but upon the weak, the poor, the helpless—the widow, by her fireless hearth—the orphan, by his father's grave. Oh, sir—we have just tried a bold, bad man; a colossal criminal, whose very errors wear something of the gloomy grandeur of the thunder-cloud. To put you on trial, after him, is like leaving the presence of Satan, his forehead yet bearing some traces of former splendor, to find ones-self confronted by Mammon, that most abased of all the damned. Yes, sir,—an apology is due to human nature, by this court, for stooping so low as to put you on your trial. And yet, even you derive some sort of consequence from the vast field of your crimes,—the wide-spread and infernal results of your life-long labors."