privately accepted for that person–not as being unquestionably
the right term, but as being the least possibly the right one,
though he was never able to understand why the twins did not
vanish and escape, as the confederate had done, instead of
remaining by the murdered man and getting caught there.
The courthouse was crowded, of course, and would remain so
to the finish, for not only in the town itself, but in the
country for miles around, the trial was the one topic of
conversation among the people. Mrs. Pratt, in deep mourning,
and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats near Pembroke Howard,
the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a great array of friends
of the family. The twins had but one friend present to keep
their counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing landlady.
She sat near Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the
“nigger corner” sat Chambers; also Roxy, with good clothes on,
and her bill of sale in her pocket. It was her most precious possession,
and she never parted with it, day or night. Tom had allowed her
thirty-five dollars a month ever since he came into his property,
and had said the he and she ought to be grateful to the twins for
making them rich; but had roused such a temper in her by this
speech that he did not repeat the argument afterward. She said
the old judge had treated her child a thousand times better than
he deserved, and had never done her an unkindness in his life;
so she hated these outlandish devils for killing him, and shouldn’t
ever sleep satisfied till she saw them hanged for it.
She was here to watch the trial now, and was going to lift up just one
“hooraw” over it if the county judge put her in jail a year for it.
She gave her turbaned head a toss and said, “When dat verdic’ comes,
I’s gwine to lif’ dat ROOF, now, I TELL you.”
Pembroke Howard briefly sketched the state’s case.
He said he would show by a chain of circumstantial evidence without
break or fault in it anywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar
committed the murder; that the motive was partly revenge,
and partly a desire to take his own life out of jeopardy, and that
his brother, by his presence, was a consenting accessory to the crime;
a crime which was the basest known to the calendar of
human misdeeds–assassination; that it was conceived by the
blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands;
a crime which had broken a loving sister’s heart, blighted the
happiness of a young nephew who was as dear as a son, brought
inconsolable grief to many friends, and sorrow and loss to the
whole community. The utmost penalty of the outraged law would be exacted,
and upon the accused, now present at the bar,
that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He would reserve
further remark until his closing speech.
He was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house;
Mrs. Pratt and several other women were weeping when he sat down,
and many an eye that was full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners.
Witness after witness was called by the state,
and questioned at length; but the cross questioning was brief.
Wilson knew they could furnish nothing valuable for his side.
People were sorry for Pudd’nhead Wilson; his budding career would
get hurt by this trial.
Several witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his
public speech that the twins would be able to find their lost
knife again when they needed it to assassinate somebody with.
This was not news, but now it was seen to have been sorrowfully
prophetic, and a profound sensation quivered through the hushed
courtroom when those dismal words were repeated.
The public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his
knowledge, through a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the
last day of his life, that counsel for the defense had brought
him a challenge from the person charged at the bar with murder;
that he had refused to fight with a confessed assassin–