"Well, you needn't laugh so much about it!" she exclaimed, as Sargent's amusement seemed to increase. "You could make him tell you if you had a mind to. Mammy says you have a silver tongue, and when people have that, they can make other people tell everything they know. I don't care though, if you don't make him tell," she cried, the tears coming into her eyes as Sargent continued laughing. They were at the gate now, and as he lifted her from the pony, she struggled out of his arms and flew toward the house. "I don't care a picayune if you don't ever win a case!" she called back to him from the veranda, and then slammed the door tight after her.
Sargent walked slowly toward his room. The smile had gone from his face now, and in its place was an odd, quickening expression.
"Make him tell you!" he repeated Natalia's words as he unlocked the door of his room. "Make him tell you!" he repeated, as he blew out his candle, hours later. "Make him tell you!" he repeated all through that long, sleepless night.
CHAPTER V
MAGNETISM
The two men faced each other, the lawyer at one end of the long table, the prisoner barely ten feet away, in his chair before the jury. The moment was tense. Everything had been finished, even Jervais' eloquent speech to the jury, in which he had cautioned the twelve men not to let sentiment lead them to a decision, but to be guided only by the evidence and what had absolutely been proved. And now remained only the speech of the prosecution, on which rested the hopes of every one in the courtroom.
Even the jury had grown restless under the continued want of facts in the case. Their attitude toward the prisoner was but a reflection of the sentiment of the townspeople—they feared the man; his presence was a menace always to be faced; they wanted to be freed from his disturbing proximity; and they wanted to feel that long trips to neighbouring villages would be without the danger of this highwayman. In short they wanted him dead.
But what they had heard was not convicting. It was impossible, so far, to render a verdict of guilty, on what had been shown.
During the silence that followed Jervais' speech, Sargent rose from his chair, and stepped forward. A wave of disappointment rushed over the courtroom, for the people had hoped to the last that their district attorney would be able to leave his bed and come to the rescue, convicting the prisoner through the eloquence they had known for years. But everything seemed in favour of the prisoner, every one admitted that Jervais had made the finest speech of his career, and now that their great attorney had been substituted by a youth who had not even made his first speech before the bar, Phelps' chances for acquittal were depressingly certain.
What could this young lawyer do? This limping, Yankee schoolteacher who had come South to make a living? What could he do but complete the fiasco of the trial? A titter was heard at one end of the courtroom, followed by an outright laugh, and then, suddenly, silence fell again as a counter wave of interest fell over the audience. Something in the position of the two men—the lawyer and the prisoner—had claimed their attention.