Eli Part 4

And then he rapped upon the table.

"Gentlemen," he said, "please draw your chairs up, and let us take another ballot."

The count resulted as before.

The foreman muttered something which had a scriptural sound. In a few moments he drew Mr. Eldridge and two others aside. "Gentlemen," he said to them, "I shall quietly divide the jury into watches, under your charge: ten can sleep, while one wakes to keep Mr. Smith discussing the question. I don't propose to have the night wasted."

And, by one man or another, Eli was kept awake.

"I don't see," said the book-agent, "why you should feel obliged to stick it out any longer. Of course, you are under obligations. But you 've done more than enough already, so as that he can't complain of you, and if you give in now, everybody 'll give you credit for trying to save your friend, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for giving in to the evidence. So you 'll get credit both ways."

An hour later, the tin-pedler came on duty. He had not followed closely the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry.

"Now, how foolish you be," he said, in a confidential tone. "Can't you see that if you cave in now, after stan'n' out nine hours"--and he looked at a silver watch with a bra.s.s chain, and stroked his goatee--"nine hours and twenty-seven minutes--that you 've made jest rumpus enough so as't he won't dare to foreclose on you, for fear they 'll say you went back on a trade. On t' other hand, if you hold clear out, he'll turn you out-o'-doors to-morrow, for a blind, so 's to look as if there wa' n't no trade between you. Once he gits off, he won't know Joseph, you bet! That's what I 'd do," he added, with a sly laugh.

"Take your uncle's advice."

"The only trouble with that," said Eli, shortly, "is that I don't owe him anything."

"Oh," said the pedler; "that makes a difference. I understood you did."

Three o'clock came, and brought Mr. El-dridge. He found Eli worn out with excitement.

"Now, I don't judge you the way the others do," said Mr. Eldridge, in a low tone, with his hand on Eli's knee. "I know, as I told you, just the way you feel. But we can't help such things. Suppose, now, that I had kept dark, and allowed to the owners that that man was always sober, and I had heard, six months after, of thirty or forty men going to the bottom because the captain was a little off his base; and then to think of their wives and children at home. We have to do some hard things; but I say, do the square thing, and let her slide."

"But I can't believe he 's guilty," said Eli.

"But don't you allow," said Mr. Eldridge, "that eleven men are more sure to hit it right than one man?"

"Yes," said Eli, reluctantly, "as a general thing."

"Well, there's always got to be some give to a jury, just as in everything else, and you ought to lay right down on the rest of us. It is n't as if we were at all squirmish. Now, you know that if you hold out, he 'll be tried again."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Got to be--no other way," said Mr. Eldridge. "Now, the next time, there won't be anybody like you to stand out, and the judge 'll know of this sc.r.a.pe, and he'll just sock it to him."

Eli turned uneasily in his chair.

"And then it won't be understood in your place, and folks 'll turn against you every way, and, what's worse, let you alone."

"I can stand it," said Eli, angrily. "Let 'em do as they like. They can't kill me."

"They can kill your wife and break down your children," said Mr.

Eldridge. "Women and children can't stand it. Now, there's that man they were speaking of; he lived down my way. He sued a poor, s.h.i.+ftless fellow that had come from Pennsylvania to his daughter's funeral, and had him arrested and taken off, crying, just before the funeral begun--after they 'd even set the flowers on the coffin; and n.o.body'd speak to him after that--they just let him alone; and after a while his wife took sick of it--she was a nice, kindly woman--and she had sort of hysterics, and finally he moved off West. And 't was n't long before the woman died. Now, you can't undertake to do different from everybody else."

"Well," said Eli, "I know I wish it was done with."

Mr. Eldridge stretched his arms and yawned. Then he began to walk up and down, and hum, out of tune. Then he stopped at Captain Thomas's chair.

"Suppose we try a ballot," he said. "He seems to give a little."

In a moment the foreman rapped.

"It is time we were taking another ballot, gentlemen," he said.

The sleepers rose, grumbling, from uneasy dreams.

"I will write 'guilty' on twelve ballots," said the foreman, "and if any one desires to write in 'not,' of course he can."

When the hat came to Eli, he took one of the ballots and held it in his hand a moment, and then he laid it on the table. There was a general murmur. The picture which Mr. El-dridge had drawn loomed up before him.

But with a hasty hand he wrote in "not," dropped in the ballot, and going back to his chair by the window, sat down.

There was a cold wave of silence.

Then Eli suddenly walked up to the foreman and faced him.

"Now," he said, "we 'll stop. The very next turn breaks ground. If you, or any other man that you set on, tries to talk to me when I don't want to hear, to worry me to death--look out!"

How the long hours wore on! How easy, sometimes, to resist an open pressure, and how hard, with the resistance gone, to fight, as one that beats the air! How the prospect of a whole hostile town loomed up, in a mirage, before Eli! And then the picture rose before him of a long, stately bark, now building, whose owner had asked him yesterday to be first mate. And if his wife were only well, and he were only free from this night's trouble, how soon, upon the long, green waves, he could begin to redeem his little home!

And then came Mr. Eldridge, kind and friendly, to have another little chat.

Morning came, cold and drizzly. An officer knocked at the door, and called out, "Breakfast!" And in a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed, except the tin-pedler, who always carried a beard-comb in his pocket, they were marched across the street to the hotel.

There were a number of men on the piazza waiting to see them,--jurymen, witnesses, and the accused himself, for he was on bail. He had seen the procession the night before, and, like the others, had read its meaning.

"Eli knows I would n't do it," he had said to himself, "and he's going to hang out, sure."

The jury began to turn from the court-house door. Everybody looked. A file of two men, another file, another, another; would there come three men, and then one? No; Eli no longer walked alone.

Everybody looked at Wood; he turned sharply away.

But this time the order of march in fact showed nothing, one way or the other. It only meant that the judge, who had happened to see the jury the night before returning from their supper, had sent for the high sheriff in some temper,--for judges are human,--and had vigorously intimated that if that statesman did not look after his fool of a deputy, who let a jury parade secrets to the public view, he would!

The jury were in their room again. At nine o'clock came a rap, and a summons from the court. The prosecuting attorney was speaking with the judge when they went in. In a moment he took his seat.

"John Wood!" called out the clerk, and the defendant arose. His attorney was not there.

"Mr. Foreman!" said the judge, rising. The jury arose. The silence of the crowded courtroom was intense.

"Before the clerk asks you for a verdict, gentlemen," said the judge, "I have something of the first importance to say to you, which has but this moment come to my knowledge."

Eli changed color, and the whole court-room looked at him.

"There were some most singular rumors, after the case was given to you, gentlemen, to the effect that there had been in this cause a criminal abuse of justice. It is painful to suspect, and shocking to know, that courts and juries are liable ever to suffer by such unprincipled practices. After ten years upon the bench, I never witness a conviction of crime without pain; but that pain is light, compared with the distress of knowing of a wilful perversion of justice. It is a relief to me to be able to say to you that such instances are, in my judgment, exceedingly rare, and--so keen is the awful searching power of truth--are almost invariably discovered."

The foreman touched his neighbor with his elbow. Eli folded his arms.

"As I said," continued the judge, "there were most singular rumors.