ustice! Why, your name
isn't Price!"

"Are you sure of that?" asked the judge quickly.

"You're an impostor! Your name is Turberville!"

"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 b