With these words, I sprang lightly up the steps which led to Keen Chop’s chair, and ere he could say nay, caught up his fan which he had just laid down on the table beside him.
“Now, venerable judge, for a last,—and I trust overwhelming—proof that no evil spirit dwells within that creature’s body.
“Here are two fans: Thine! Mine! Thine, made sacred by the touch of thy age-palsied and time-stricken hand! Mine, a worthless trifle; if it were possible, made still more worthless by the touch of my worthless hand. If, as this Court hath charged, an evil spirit dwells in this animal’s body, it knows full well that power of life or death hangs on thy lips; that thou canst pardon with a smile or slay with a frown; that thou canst condemn to lingering torture or strike his shackles off with a nod!
“Ay, more! that if it should, to thine eyes seem meet and wise, thou canst adjudge both master and dog worthy of death and grant them no greater boon than that their blood shall flow together after life is over, as their love was one when living!
“Behold, I cast these two fans at his feet!”
Loud murmurs broke out all over the vast assembly. Many rose in their seats and craned their necks to watch the result.
Bulger looked up at me with a puzzled air at first; but his mind was soon made up. He picked up my fan tenderly and carefully, and with wide-opened, love-lit eyes, raised himself on his hind feet and laid it in my lap, wagging his tail the while, as much as to say: “Never fear, little master, I know what belongs to thee!”
Then, with an outburst of snarling, barking and growling, threw himself upon Keen Chop’s fan, shook it savagely until the richly painted covering was torn in shreds and lay scattered about; tossed it up in the air, only to leap upon it with all fours as it touched the floor; and then, setting his stout claws in its joints wrenched them asunder as if they were made of paper.
But this was not all!
To complete the list of indignities which he had visited upon Keen Chop’s property, he now turned his back toward that grave magistrate; and by several sudden and vigorous kicks with his hind feet, sent the sticks in a shower flying so close to his head that one actually struck against the huge disc of glass placed in front of Keen Chop’s right eye. But a court officer, who had fallen sound asleep, and let his head fall backward, did not escape so luckily. Two of the largest sticks entered his nostrils and remained sticking there like arrows in a target. The man awoke with an ear-piercing shriek. In spite of the commands of the court officers, that every one who laughed should be bastinadoed, there was suppressed giggling here and there. Keen Chop himself twisted his face into the most comical grimaces in order to keep from bursting out into a fit of laughter. As for Bulger, he was beside himself with pleasure. In fact, he fairly howled with joy. Keen Chop now moved his thumb as a sign that he was about to speak, and a deep silence fell upon the multitude.