Maximilian Shinburn
CHAPTER VI
PERSECUTION
I awoke the next morning, with a start, from a night of interrupted slumber. The closing hours of the trial and the escape of Shinburn had command of my brain till it was a relief to open my eyes and become conscious of my surroundings. As I thought of Shinburn away from the horror of the jail, I will not attempt to deny that I had a sense of gladness for him. I had seen considerable of this man in jail, and I had to confess to myself that he possessed the rare faculty of winning the friendship of almost any one. He had won mine as the fictitious deputy marshal, and knowing him at length as the bank burglar, I could not do else but like him. His whole-souled, generous nature shone through his criminal craft, until at times I found myself wondering if he really were a felon,—wondering if I were not in a dream. When this mood was dissolved, and I realized that he was a criminal of exceptional cunning,—all he’d been proved at the trial,—I asked myself what it was that had sent him on to the commission of crime. At times, when I would hear his soft, gracious voice, look in his kindly blue eyes, and admire his genial smile, it was not difficult to fancy him standing in a pulpit, preaching the word of God. But I am digressing too much.
These thoughts gave way to the more important matter of getting bail. Now that the jury had disagreed, my counsel applied for my release, believing that only nominal bail would be required; but imagine their astonishment when Judge Doe announced he’d increased it to twenty thousand dollars. This was as outrageous as it was unexpected, in view of the issue of the trial. Had I not been declared innocent, practically, by some of the jurymen? Was not their action sufficient in itself to warrant the authorities, on the moral ground, if on no other, in giving me the benefit of the doubt, so far as bail was concerned? My counsel were up and doing, unsparing of words in protesting against the injustice, proceeding almost to the point of offending Judge Doe. And my loyal friends again came to the rescue. Speedily setting about, they subscribed the new bail, and in a few days my release was once more applied for. To our consternation this sum was declared to be insufficient, and when an explanation was demanded of Judge Doe, he answered by increasing the bond to forty thousand dollars.
“And if that is offered,” he declared coldly, “I’ll make it eighty thousand dollars!”
Here was persecution absolute. His decision was a flat refusal to accord the right guaranteed me by the constitution,—the right of admission to bail, charged as I was with a felony only. A constitutional guaranty had been swept away like so much waste paper. My trial had been a travesty on justice, and then to crown that, I was being persecuted, was hopelessly bound in the toils of a relentless, powerful enemy, it seemed. I must remain in jail to await another trial—bear the agony longer—helpless, because a certain influential man had schemed to drag my wealth from me to reimburse himself and others. As to getting my wealth, that, indeed, had been accomplished. My business had been seized and sold, and I was penniless and dependent. What more did they want? Would the human vultures not be satisfied until my body had been thrust in a prison cell and kept there for years—until torture had devoured it? Was there, I cried out to God, no limit to the persecution of an innocent man? Where was that boasted justice, that love and that piety of the Puritans? Had mammon ridden roughshod over and crushed out those high ideals of old New Hampshire? I found no answer, not even an echo of my words from the four bleak walls of my prison-house.
As the weeks wore on and there was no relief, the evil that persisted in forcing itself upon me, from time to time, and which I had as often conquered, came back again with still greater force. Made reckless to the danger point by the power of my wrongs, I fostered the evil thoughts until they were almost my ruling passion. I swore one day I would no longer willingly submit to such inhuman treatment; that I would be a law unto myself, and that I would accept the consequences, be what they might.
The dreary autumn days had merged into winter when the decision to break out of jail became an accepted thought. Day and night I meditated over a plot that would make freedom from my cell certain. My friends, aroused over the injustice heaped upon me, were only too willing, at last, to lend their aid. All the tools, clothing, and money needed would be forthcoming at the proper time, and I believed that God would forgive any one who would brave a violation of the law to succor an unfortunate one like me.
At last I completed a plan, and when February came I had secreted in my cell the saws, files, and other implements necessary to cut my way to freedom. In the cell with me at that time was a young burglar named Woods, whom I did not much trust, but felt obliged to include in my plans. He, naturally, was willing, and from then on we labored together in one common interest.