“Oh, thank God!� she said.
It was then that Caleb came back, and she noticed how pale he looked and how worn, for the long weeks of preparation for the trial and the final ordeal had worn him to the bone. “The carriage is waiting,� he said simply, and made a movement, slight but definite, toward Diana. But she had taken her father’s arm. The colonel thanked the younger man heartily, yet his manner did not exactly convey an invitation. Caleb stood aside, therefore, to let them pass. At the door, Diana stopped her father with a slight pressure on his arm, and held out her hand.
“Good-bye,� she said quietly, “and thank you.�
Caleb watched them disappear down the corridor to the rear entrance where two policemen were on guard. Then he went out, bareheaded, on the front steps and glanced over the heads of the troopers sitting like statues on their horses in front of the court-house. Yarnall’s body had been carried in on a stretcher, and a detachment of the governor’s guard filled the main entrance. Beyond the long files of soldiers the streets were packed with men and women and even children. No one was speaking now, no sounds were heard; there was, instead, a fearful pause, a silence that seemed to Trench more dreadful than tumult. He stood an instant looking at the scene, strangely touched by it, strangely moved, too, at the thought of the strong man who had been laid low and whose life was snapped at one flash, one single missile. Death stood there in the open court.
Then some one cried out shrilly that there was Caleb Trench, the counsel for Yarnall, the dead man’s victorious defender, and at the cry a cheer went up, deep-throated, fierce, a signal for riot. The silence was gone; the crowd broke, rushed forward, hurled itself against the line of fixed bayonets, crying for the assassin.
A bugle sounded again. There was a long wavering flash of steel, as the troopers charged amid cries and threats and flying missiles. A moment of pandemonium and again the masses fell away and the cordon of steel closed in about the square.
At the first sound of his name Caleb Trench had gone back into the court-house. On the main staircase he saw Governor Aylett, Jacob Eaton and a group of lawyers and officers of the militia. He passed them silently and went up-stairs. Outside the court-room door was a guard of police. The door of Judge Ladd’s inner office was open and he saw that it was crowded with attorneys and officials. Judge Hollis came out and laid his hand on Caleb’s shoulder.
“My boy,� he said, “this is the worst day’s work that has ever been done here, and they want to lay it on a poor nigger.�
“I know,� replied Caleb, “he was the only one seen at the window.�
“Yes,� assented Judge Hollis, “but, by the Lord Harry, I’d give something handsome to know—who was behind Juniper!�