t made his reputation as an
orator, and opened up to him a successful political career.

The judge's charge to the jury was a plain, simple statement of the law
as applied to circumstantial evidence, and the mere statement of the law
foreshadowed the verdict.

The eyes of the prisoner were glued to the jury-box, and he looked more
and more like a hunted animal. In the rear of the crowd of blacks who
filled the back part of the room, partly concealed by the projecting
angle of the fireplace, stood Tom, the blacksmith's assistant. If the
face is the mirror of the soul, then this man's soul, taken off its
guard in this moment of excitement, was full of lust and envy and all
evil passions.

The jury filed out of their box, and into the jury room behind the
judge's stand. There was a moment of relaxation in the court room. The
lawyers fell into conversation across the table. The judge beckoned to
Colonel Thornton, who stepped forward, and they conversed together a few
moments. The prisoner was all eyes and ears in this moment of waiting,
and from an involuntary gesture on the part of the judge he divined that
they were speaking of him. It is a pity he could not hear what was said.

"How do you feel about the case, Colonel?" asked the judge.

"Let him off easy," replied Colonel Thornton. "He 's the best blacksmith
in the county."

The business of the court seemed to have halted by tacit consent, in
anticipation of a quick verdict. The suspense did not last long.
Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when there was a rap on the door, the
officer opened it, and the jury came out.

The prisoner, his soul in his eyes, sought their faces, but met no
reassuring glance; they were all looking away from him.

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?"

"We have," responded the foreman. The clerk of the court stepped forward
and took the fateful slip from the foreman's hand.

The clerk read the verdict: "We, the jury impaneled and sworn to try the
issues in this cause, do find the prisoner guilty as charged in the
indictment."

There was a moment of breathless silence. Then a wild burst of grief
from the prisoner's wife, to which his two children, not understanding
it all, but vaguely conscious of some calamity, added their voices in
two long, discordant wails, which would have been ludicrous had they not
been heartrending.

The face of the young man in the back of the room expressed relief and
badly concealed s