“Permit me to relieve your apprehensions. It is Turberville who has received the appointment. Would you like to examine my credentials?—I have them by me—no? I am obliged for your introduction. It could not have come at a more timely moment!” The judge seemed to dismiss Fentress contemptuously. Once more he faced the packed benches. “Put down your weapons!” he commanded. “This man Murrell will not be released. At the first effort at rescue he will be shot where he sits—we have sworn it—his plotting is at an end.” He stalked nearer the benches. “Not one chance in a thousand remains to him. Either he dies here or he lives to betaken before every judge in the state, if necessary, until we find one with courage to try him! Make no mistake—it will best conserve the ends of justice to allow the state court's jurisdiction in this case; and I pledge myself to furnish evidence which will start him well on his road to the gallows!” The judge, a tremendous presence, stalked still nearer the benches. Outfacing the crowd, a sense of the splendor of the part he was being called upon to play flowed through him like some elixir; he felt that he was transcending himself, that his inspiration was drawn from the hidden springs of the spirit, and that he could neither falter nor go astray. “You don't know what you are meddling with! This man has plotted to lay the South in ruins—he has been arming the negroes—it—it is incredible that you should all know this—to such I say, go home and thank God for your escape! For the others”—his shaggy brows met in a menacing frown—“if they force our hand we will toss them John Murrell's dead carcass—that's our answer to their challenge!”
He strode out among the gun muzzles which wavered where they still covered him. He was thinking of Mahaffy—Mahaffy, who had said he was still a man to be reckoned with. For the comfort of his own soul he was proving it.
“Do you know what a servile insurrection means?—you men who have wives and daughters, have you thought of their fate? Of the monstrous savagery to which they would be exposed? Do you believe he could limit and control it? Look at him! Why, he has never had a consideration outside of his own safety, and yet he expects you to risk your necks to save his! He would have left the state before the first blow was struck—his business was all down river—but we are going to keep him here to answer for his crimes! The law, as implacable as it is impartial, has put its mark on him—the shadow in which he sits is the shadow of the gallows!”
The judge paused, but the only sound in that expectant silence was the heavy breathing of men. He drew his unwieldy form erect, while his voice rumbled on, aggressive and threatening in its every intonation.
“You are here to defend something that no longer exists. Your organization is wrecked, your signals and passwords are known, your secrets have become public property—I can even produce a list of your members; there are none of you who do not stand in imminent peril—yet understand, I have no wish to strike at those who have been misled or coerced into joining Murrell's band!” The judge's sodden old face glowed now with the magnanimity of his sentiments. “But I have no feeling of mercy for your leaders, none for Murrell himself. Put down your guns!—you can only kill us after we have killed Murrell—but you can't kill the law! If the arch conspirator dies in this room and hour, on whose head will the punishment fall?” He swung round his ponderous arm in a sweeping gesture and shook a fat but expressive forefinger in the faces of those nearest him. “On yours—and yours—and yours!”
Across the space that separated them the judge grinned his triumph at his enemy. He had known when Fentress entered the room that a word or a sign from him would precipitate a riot, but he knew now that neither this word nor this sign would be given. Then quite suddenly he strode down the aisle, and foot by foot Fentress yielded ground before his advance. A murderous light flashed from the judge's bloodshot eyes and his right hand was stealing toward the frayed tails of his coat.
“Look out—he's getting ready to shoot!” cried a frightened voice.
Instantly by doors and windows the crowd, seized with inexplicable panic, emptied itself into the courthouse yard. Fentress was caught up in the rush and borne from the room and from the building. When he reached the graveled space below the steps he turned. The judge was in the doorway, the center of a struggling group; Mr. Bowen, the minister, Mr. Saul and Mr. Wesley were vainly seeking to pinion his arm.
“Draw—damn you!” he roared at Fentress, as he wrenched himself free, and the crowd swayed to right and left as Fentress was seen to reach for his pistol.
Mr. Saul made a last frantic effort to restrain his friend; he seized the judge's arm just as the latter's finger pressed the trigger, and an instant later Fentress staggered back with the judge's bullet in his shoulder.