There was one circumstance perpetually harped upon by our bright, one-eyed friend of the Hunter's Inn; Cyclops, I and Williams called him. What had become of a large sum in notes paid, it was well known, to Mr. Bradshaw three or four days before his death? What also of a ruby ring, and some unset precious stones he had brought from abroad, and which he had always estimated, rightly or wrongly, at so high a price? Drysdale's house and garden had been turned inside out, but nothing had been found, and so for that matter had been Rodney Place, and its two remaining inmates had been examined with the like ill success. Burnham, who was excessively dissatisfied with the progress of affairs, swore there was an infernal mystery somewhere, and that he shouldn't sleep till he had ferreted it out. That was his business: ours was to make the best of the wretched materials at our disposal; but the result we all expected followed. The foregone conclusion of the jury that were empaneled in the case was just about to be formally recorded in a verdict of guilty, when a note was handed across to Mr. Sims. One Mr. Jay, a timber merchant, who had heard the evidence of the postillion, desired to be examined. This the judge at once consented to, and Mr. Jay deposed, that having left Exeter in his gig upon pressing business, at about two o'clock on the morning of the murder, he had observed a post-chaise at the edge of a pond about a mile and a half out of the city, where the jaded horses had been, he supposed, drinking. They were standing still, and the post-boy, who was inside, and had reins to drive with passed through the front windows, was fast asleep—a drunken sleep it seemed, and he, Mr. Jay, had to bawl for some time, and strike the chaise with his whip, before he could awake the man, who, at last, with a growl and a curse, drove on. He believed, but would not like to positively swear, that the postillion he had heard examined was that man. This testimony, strongly suggestive as it was, his lordship opined, did not materially affect the case; the jury concurred, and a verdict of guilty was pronounced and recorded amidst the death-like silence of a hushed and anxious auditory.
The unfortunate convict staggered visibly beneath the blow, fully expected, as it must have been, and a terrible spasm convulsed his features and shook his frame. It passed away; and his bearing and speech, when asked what he had to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced according to law, was not without a certain calm dignity and power, while his tones, tremulous, it is true, were silvery and unassuming as a child's.
"I can not blame the gentlemen of the jury," he said. "Their fatal verdict is, I am sure, as conscientious as God and myself know it to be erroneous—false! Circumstances are, I feel, strangely arrayed against me; and it has been my fate through life to be always harshly judged, save only by one whose truth and affection have shed over my checkered existence the only happiness it has ever known. I observed, too, the telling sneer of the prosecuting counsel, connecting the circumstances under which I left the navy with the cowardice of the deed with which I stand here accused—convicted, I suppose, I should say. I forgive that gentleman his cruel sneer as freely as I do you, gentlemen of the jury, your mistaken verdict—you, my lord, the death-sentence you are about to pronounce. The manner in which I hope to pass through the brief, but dark and bitter passage lying between me and the grave will, I trust, be a sufficient answer to the taunt of cowardice, and the future vindication of my innocence, not for my own, but my wife and children's sake, I confidently leave them to Him into whose hands I shall soon, untimely, render up my spirit. This is all I have to say."
The prisoner's calm, simple, unhurried words, produced a marvelous effect upon the court and auditory. The judge, Chief Baron Macdonald, a conscientious, and somewhat nervous man, paused in the act of assuming the black-cap, and presently said, rather hastily, "Let the prisoner be removed; I will pass sentence to-morrow." The court then immediately adjourned.
I was miserably depressed in spirits, which the cold, sleety weather that greeted us on emerging from the hot and crowded court considerably increased. I was thinking—excuse the seeming bathos—I was only a clerk, and used to such tragedies; I was thinking, I say, that a glass of brandy and water might not be amiss, when whom should I rudely jostle against but Cyclops, alias Thomas Burnham. He was going the same way as myself in prodigious haste—his eye bright and flaming as a live coal, and his whole manner denoting intense excitement. "Is that you?" he broke out. "Come along, then, and quick, for the love of God! I've missed Sims and his clerk, but you'll do as well; perhaps better." I had no power, if I had the inclination to refuse, for the enthusiastic man seized me by the arm, and hurried me along at a tremendous rate toward the outskirts of the city. "This is the place," he exclaimed, as he burst into a tavern parlor, where two trunks had been deposited. "He's not come yet," Burnham went on, "but the coach is to call for him here. He thinks to be off to London this very night."
"Whom are you talking of? Who's off to London to-night?"
"James Berry, if he's clever enough! Look there!"
"I see; 'James Berry, Passenger, London.' These, then, are his trunks, I suppose."
"Right, my boy; but there is nothing of importance in them. Sly, steady-going Margery has well ascertained that. You know Margery?—but hush! here he comes."
Berry—it was he—could not repress a nervous start, as he unexpectedly encountered Burnham's burly person and fierce glare.