rk did not press the point;
and Carmen was delivered into the hands of the lawyers.

Cass hesitated. He knew not how to begin. Then, yielding to a sudden
impulse, he asked the girl to mention briefly the place of her birth,
her parentage, and other statistical data, leading up to her
association with the defendant.

The story that followed was simply given. It was but the one she had
told again and again. Yet the room hung on her every word. And when
she had concluded, Cass turned her back again to Simiti, and to
Rosendo's share in the mining project which had ultimated in this
suit.

A far-away look came into the girl's eyes as she spoke of that great,
black man who had taken her from desolate Badillo into his own warm
heart. There were few dry eyes among the spectators when she told of
his selfless love. And when she drew the portrait of him, standing
alone in the cold mountain water, far up in the jungle of Guamoco,
bending over the laden _batea_, and toiling day by day in those
ghastly solitudes, that she might be protected and educated and raised
above her primitive environment in Simiti, there were sobs heard
throughout the room; and even the judge, hardened though he was by
conflict with the human mind, removed his glasses and loudly cleared
his throat as he wiped them.

Ames first grew weary as he listened, and then exasperated. His lawyer
at length rose to object to the recital on the ground that it was
largely irrelevant to the case. And the judge, pulling himself
together, sustained the objection. Cass sat down. Then the prosecution
eagerly took up the cross-examination. Ames's hour had come.

"Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth," murmured the white-haired man in the clerical garb far
back in the crowded room. Had he learned the law of Truth to error,
"Thou shall surely die"? Did he discern the vultures gnawing at the
rich man's vitals? Did he, too, know that this giant of privilege, so
insolently flaunting his fleeting power, his blood-stained wealth and
his mortal pride, might as well seek to dim the sun in heaven as to
escape the working of those infinite divine laws which shall effect
the destruction of evil and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven
even here upon earth?

Ames leaned over to whisper to Hood. The latter drew Ellis down and
transmitted his master's instructions. The atmosphere grew tense, and
the hush of expectancy lay over all.

"