He was followed by two seamen who had no further evidence to give than that they had helped to stop the leaks and had seen the captain draw a pistol upon Rotch in his cabin; they also testified to the discovery of the auger, one of them saving that he recollected Mr. Nodder telling the men that Captain Butler had come forward and borrowed an auger.
‘Mr. Nodder,’ said this witness, ‘told us men that he couldn’t imagine what the capt’n wanted an auger for; two days after the hole was found bored in the lazarette.’
Thus ran the questions and the answers. Tom looked steadily at the witnesses as they spoke; but he made no sign; his arms lay motionless, folded upon his breast. Twice or thrice I saw his eyebrows faintly lift, and his lips part as though to a deep breath of irrepressible horror and amazement.
The Court adjourned for lunch after the two seamen had given their evidence; I remained in the court with my aunt. Mr. Johnstone came to us, and I asked him what he thought the verdict would be.
‘Wait for it! Wait for it!’ he exclaimed, petulant with worry and doubts. ‘Did not I tell Butler that he had heavily blundered in over-insuring? And how well Rotch gave his evidence! How frank were the devil’s admissions! Never a wink or a stutter with him from beginning to end! But the twelve have yet to hear the sergeant. Keep up your spirits, Marian!’ And he abruptly left us, but not without exchanging a look with his wife. I caught that look, and my heart sank and turned cold, as though the hand of death had grasped it.
When the Court reassembled, five witnesses were called to speak to Tom’s character. It was shortly before four when the judge had finished summing up. I had followed Sergeant Shee’s address with impassioned attention, eagerly watching the faces of the jurymen as he spoke, and detesting the judge for the sleepy air with which he listened and the barristers at the table and the people round about for their inattention and frequent whispers and passing of papers one to another on business of their own, as though the drama of life or death to me which had nearly filled the day had grown tiresome, and they were waiting for the curtain. Then I had followed with a maddening conflict of emotion, but with an ever-gaining feeling of sickness and faintness, like to the sense of a poisoned and killing conviction slowly creeping to the heart against its maddest current of hopes and protests—thus had I listened to the address of the counsel for the prosecution who replied upon the whole case; and now I listened to Mr. Justice Maule’s summing-up, a tedious and inconclusive address. He made little of the points which I believed he would have insisted upon. He talked like a tired man, he retold the testimony, and I seemed to find a prejudice against Tom throughout his delivery.
Then it was left to the jury, and the jury, after an absence of twenty minutes, returned with the verdict of ‘Guilty’ against the prisoner.
My aunt clutched my hand. I felt a shock as though the blood in my veins had been arrested in ice in its course. Mr. Justice Maule proceeded to pass sentence. He spoke in a sing-song voice, as though at every instant he must interrupt himself with a yawn. He said that the prisoner had been found guilty, after a fair and impartial trial, of the offence of having feloniously and wilfully attempted to destroy the ship Arab Chief for the purpose of defrauding the underwriters. That was the conclusion the jury had arrived at, and he was perfectly satisfied with this verdict. And then he pointed out the gravity of the offence, and how such acts tended to check the spirit of mercantile adventure, and how impossible it would be for insurance companies to exist if they were not protected by the law. He rejoiced that the penalty applied to this crime was no longer capital. At the same time it was his duty to inflict a severe punishment. The sentence of the Court was that the prisoner should be transported beyond the seas for the term of fourteen years.
My aunt sprang to her feet and shrieked aloud when this awful sentence was delivered. I sat dumb and motionless. Never once throughout the day had Tom looked in our direction. Now, on my aunt shrieking, he turned his head, saw me, and pointed upward, as though surrendering our love to God. The next moment he had stepped out of sight.
My uncle came to us. He was white and terribly agitated and shocked.