The Just and the Unjust Part 51

North's face was white, but he wore a look of high courage. He understood to the full the dreadful hazard of the next few moments. With never a glance to the right or to the left, he crossed the room and took his seat; as he settled himself in his chair, Belknap hurried into court.

Judge Langham had not yet appeared, and the crowd focused its attention on the shut door leading into his private office. Presently this door was seen to open slowly, and the judge's spare erect figure paused on the threshold. His eyes, sunken, yet brilliant with a strange light, s.h.i.+fted from side to side as he glanced over the room.

Marshall Langham had not quitted his seat. There in his remote corner under the gallery, his blanched face framed by shadows, his father's glance found him. With his hand resting tremulously on the jamb of the door as if to steady himself, the judge advanced a step. Once more his eyes strayed in the direction of his son, and from the gloom of that dull corner which Marshall had made his own, despair and terror called aloud to him. His shaking hand dropped to his side, and then like some pale ghost, he pa.s.sed slowly before the eager eyes that were following his every movement to his place behind the flat-topped desk on the raised dais.

As he sank into his chair he turned to the clerk of the court and there was a movement of his thin lips, but no sound pa.s.sed them. Brockett guessed the order he had wished to give, and the big key slid around in the old-fas.h.i.+oned lock of the jury-room door. Heavy-visaged and hesitating, the twelve men filed into court, and at sight of them John North's heart seemed to die within his breast. He no longer hoped nor doubted, he knew their verdict,--he was caught in some intricate web of circ.u.mstance! A monstrous injustice was about to be done him, and in the very name of justice itself!

The jurors, awkward in their self-consciousness, crossed the room and, as intangible as it was potent, a wave of horror went with them. There was a noisy sc.r.a.ping of chairs as they took their seats, and then a deathlike silence.

The clerk glanced up inquiringly into the white face that was bent on him. A scarcely perceptible inclination of the head answered him, and he turned to the jury.

"Gentlemen, have you arrived at a true verdict, and chosen one of your number to speak for you?" he asked.

Martin Howe, the first man in the front row of the two solemn lines of jurors, came awkwardly to his feet and said almost in a whisper:

"We have. We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment."

"Mr. Howe, do you find this man guilty as charged in the indictment?"

asked the clerk.

"I do," responded the juror.

Twelve times the clerk of the court, calling each man by name, asked this question, and one by one the jurors stood up and answered:

"I do."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE LAST APPEAL

One raw morning late in April, Mark Leanard, who worked at Kirby's lumber-yard, drove his team of big grade Percherons up to Kirby's office by the railroad tracks.

"What's doing?" he asked of Kirby's clerk.

The clerk handed him a slip of paper.

"Go round and tell Mitch.e.l.l to get you out this load!" he said.

Leanard went off whistling, with the order slip tucked back of his hatband. In the yard, Mitch.e.l.l the foreman, gave him a load "of sixteen-foot" pine boards and "two by fours".

"Where to?" the driver asked, as he took his seat on top the load.

"To the jail, they're going to fence the yard."

"You mean young John North?"

"That's what,--did you think you'd get a day off and take the old woman and the kids?" asked Mitch.e.l.l.

It was a little past eight when the teamster entered the alley back of the jail and began to unload. The fall of the first heavy plank took John North to his cell window. For a long breathless moment he stood there peering down into the alley, then he turned away.

All that day the teams from Kirby's continued to bring lumber for the fence, and at intervals North heard the thud of the heavy planks as they were thrown from the wagons, or the voices of the drivers as they urged their horses up the steep grade from the street. Darkness came at last and with it unbroken quiet, but in his troubled slumbers that night the condemned man saw the teams come and go, and heard the fall of the planks. It was only when the dawn's first uncertain light stole into the cell that a dreamless sleep gave him complete forgetfulness.

From this he was presently roused by hearing the sound of voices in the yard, and then the sharp ringing blows of a hammer. He quitted his bed and slipped to the window; two carpenters had already begun building the frame work that was to carry the temporary fence which would inclose the place of execution. It was _his_ fence; it would surround his gallows that his death should not become a public spectacle.

As they went about their task, the two carpenters stole covert glances up in the direction of his window, but North stood well back in the gloom of his cell and was unseen. Horror could add nothing to the prison pallor, which had driven every particle of color from his cheeks. Out of these commonplace details was to come the final tragedy. Those men in faded overalls were preparing for his death,--a limit had been fixed to the very hours that he might live. On the morning of the tenth of June he would see earth and sky from that window for the last time!

Chance pa.s.sers-by with no very urgent affairs of their own on hand, drifted up from the street, and soon a little group had a.s.sembled in the alley to watch the two carpenters at their work, or to stare up at North's strongly barred window. Now and again a man would point out this window to some new-corner not so well informed as himself.

Whenever North looked down into the alley that morning, there was the human grouping with its changing personnel. Men sprawled on the piles of boards, or lounged about the yard, while the murmur of their idle talk reached him in his cell. The visible excuse which served to bring them there was commonplace enough, but it was invested with the interest of a coming tragedy, and North's own thoughts went forward to the time when the fence should be finished, when somewhere within the s.p.a.ce it inclosed would stand his gallows.

Shortly before the noon whistles blew, two little girls came into the alley with the carpenters' dinner pails. They made their way timidly through the crowd, casting shy glances to the right and left; at a word from one of the men they placed the dinner pails beside the pile of lumber and hurried away; but at the street corner they paused, and with wide eyes stared up in the direction of North's window.

A moment later the whistles sounded and the idlers dispersed, while the two mechanics threw down their hammers and took possession of the lumber pile. After they had eaten, they lighted their pipes and smoked in silent contentment; but before their pipes were finished the crowd began to rea.s.semble, and all that afternoon the s.h.i.+fting changing groups stood about in the alley, watching the building of the fence. At no time were the two carpenters without an audience. This continued from day to day until the structure was completed, then for a week there was no work done within the inclosure. It remained empty and deserted, with its litter of chips, of blocks and of board ends.

On the morning of the first Monday in May, North was standing before his window when the two mechanics entered the yard from the jail; they brought tools, and one carried a roll of blue paper under his arm; this he spread out on a board and both men examined it carefully. Next they crossed to the lumber pile and looked it over. They were evidently making some sort of calculation. Then they pulled on their overalls and went to work, and in one corner of the yard--the corner opposite North's window--they began to build his scaffold. The thing took shape before his very eyes, a monstrous anachronism.

General Herbert had not been idle while the unhurried preparations for John North's execution were going forward; whatever his secret feeling was, neither his words nor his manner conceded defeat. Belknap had tried every expedient known to criminal practice to secure a new trial but had failed, and it was now evident that without the intervention of the governor, North's doom was fixed unalterably. Belknap quitted Mount Hope for Columbus, and there followed daily letters and almost hourly telegrams, but General Herbert felt from the first that the lawyer was not sanguine of success. Then on the eighth of June, two days before the execution, came a long message from the lawyer. His wife was ill, her recovery was doubtful; the governor was fully possessed of the facts in North's case and was considering them, would the general come at once to Columbus?

This telegram reached Idle Hour late at night, and the next morning father and daughter were driven into Mount Hope. The pleasant life with its agreeable ordering which the general had known for ten peaceful years had resolved itself into a mad race with time. The fearful, the monstrous, seemed to reach out and grip him with skeleton fingers. Like the pale silent girl at his side, he was knowing the horror of death, and a horror that was beyond death.

They stopped at the jail to say good-by to North, and were then driven rapidly to the station. The journey of about two hours seemed interminable, but they rarely spoke. Elizabeth did not change the position she had a.s.sumed when they took their seats. She leaned lightly against her father's broad shoulder and her hands were clasped in her lap.

For weeks the situation had been absolutely pitiless. Their wrecked efforts were at the door of every hope, and if this mission failed--but it would not fail! All they had come to ask was the life of an innocent man, and surely the governor, unaffected by local prejudice, must realize John North's innocence.

It was two o'clock when they reached their destination, and as they left the car the general said:

"We will go to the hotel first. Either Judge Belknap will be there, or there will be some word for us."

At the hotel they found, not Belknap, but a letter which he had left.

The governor was suffering from a slight indisposition and was confined to the house. Belknap had made an appointment for him, and he would be expected. The general crushed the sheet of paper between his fingers with weary impatience.

"We'll see the governor at once. I'll call a carriage," he said briefly.

Five minutes later, when they had left the hotel, Elizabeth asked:

"What did Judge Belknap say?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing--the matter remains just as it was. The governor is expecting us."

"What do you think, father? This is our last hope. Oh, do you realize that?"

She rested her hand on his arm.

"It's going to be all right!" her father a.s.sured her.