Israel tried hard to brace his nerves against the force of words like these,—against the tone in which they were spoke,—but he shook from head to foot, as though he had been seized with an ague-fit.
"Think for a moment of Cornelius Berman, whom, by the grossest fraud, you stripped of property and home, leaving himself and his only child to sink heart-broken into the grave. And once you called yourself his friend. Think, also, of your instrument, Buggles, whose persecution of the artist, instigated by you, provoked a brave and honest youth into murder, and consigned him to the felon's death! Do you ask for accusers?"
"Cornelius Berman!" faltered Israel, as if thinking aloud.
"Do you ask for proofs? Behold them on the table before you. For years your course has been tracked, your crimes counted, and the hour of your punishment fixed. And the hour has come! On the table before you are proofs of all your crimes, proofs that would weigh you down in a convict's chains before any court of law. There are the secrets which you thought safely locked up in your fire-proof, or buried in the forgotten past,—secrets connected with the history of long years, with your transactions in Harrisburgh, Trenton, Albany,—with all your schemes from the very dawning of your infamous career."
"Can Fetch, the villain, have betrayed me?" and Israel sank back helplessly in the huge arm-chair;—"or, is this man only trying to bully me into some confession or other?"
"Israel Yorke! the devotion with which you, for long years, have pursued your object,—to coin money out of human blood,—has only been exceeded by the devotion of those who have followed you at every step of the way, and for years, singled you out as the victim of avenging justice."
"But what do you intend to do with me?" cried Yorke, now shivering from head to foot with terror.
"In the first place, you will sign a paper, stating the truth, viz: that you have ample means to redeem every dollar of your notes, and that you will redeem them to-day, and henceforth at your office."
"But I have not the funds," Israel began, but he was sternly interrupted by the judge: "It is false! you have the funds. Independent of the seventy-one thousand dollars, of which you say you were robbed, you can, at any moment, command a million dollars. The proofs are on the table before you. You must redeem your notes."
"And suppose I consent to sign such a paper?" hesitated the Financier.