The Evil Genius | Page 5

room. I appeal to all the gentlemen present."
The patience of the long-suffering foreman failed him at last. "Not another word shall pass my lips," he said, "until you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty among yourselves--and then I'll tell you if I agree to your verdict."
He folded his arms, and looked like the image of a man who intended to keep his word.
The hungry juryman laid himself back in his chair, and groaned. The amateur artist, who had thus far found a fund of amusement in his blotting-paper, yawned discontentedly and dropped his pen. The courteous gentleman who suffered from fidgets requested leave to walk up and down the room; and at the first turn he took woke the drowsy little man, and maddened the irritable invalid by the creaking of his boots. The chorus of five, further than ever from arriving at an opinion of their own, looked at the silent juryman. Once more he smiled mysteriously; and once more he offered an explanation of what was passing in his mind--except that he turned his bald head slowly in the direction of the foreman. Was he in sympathy with a man who had promised to be as silent as himself?
In the meantime, nothing was said or done. Helpless silence prevailed in every part of the room.
"Why the devil doesn't somebody begin?" cried the invalid. "Have you all forgotten the evidence?"
This startling question roused the jury to a sense of what was due to their oaths, if not to themselves. Some of them recollected the evidence in one way, and some of them recollected it in another; and each man insisted on doing justice to his own excellent memory, and on stating his own unanswerable view of the case.
The first man who spoke began at the middle of the story told by the witnesses in court. "I am for acquitting the captain, gentlemen; he ordered out the boats, and saved the lives of the crew."--"And I am for finding him guilty, because the ship struck on a rock in broad daylight, and in moderate weather."--"I agree with you, sir. The evidence shows that the vessel was steered dangerously near to the land, by direction of the captain, who gave the course."--"Come, come, gentlemen! let us do the captain justice. The defense declares that he gave the customary course, and that it was not followed when he left the deck. As for his leaving the ship in moderate weather, the evidence proves that he believed he saw signs of a storm brewing."--"Yes, yes, all very well, but what were the facts? When the loss of the ship was reported, the Brazilian authorities sent men to the wreck, on the chance of saving the cargo; and, days afterward, there the ship was found, just as the captain and the crew had left her."--"Don't forget, sir, that the diamonds were missing when the salvors examined the wreck."--"All right, but that's no proof that the captain stole the diamonds; and, before they had saved half the cargo, a storm did come on and break the vessel up; so the poor man was only wrong in the matter of time, after all."--"Allow me to remind you, gentlemen that the prisoner was deeply in debt, and therefore had an interest in stealing the diamonds."--Wait a little, sir. Fair play's a jewel. Who was in charge of the deck when the ship struck? The second mate. And what did the second mate do, when he heard that his owners had decided to prosecute? He committed suicide! Is there no proof of guilt in that act?"--"You are going a little too fast, sir. The coroner's jury declared that the second mate killed himself in a state of temporary insanity."--"Gently! gently! we have nothing to do with what the coroner's jury said. What did the judge say when he summed up?"--"Bother the judge! He said what they all say: 'Find the prisoner guilty, if you think he did it; and find him not guilty, if you think he didn't.' And then he went away to his comfortable cup of tea in his private room. And here are We perishing of hunger, and our families dining without us."--"Speak for yourself, sir, I haven't got a family."--"Consider yourself lucky, sir; I have got twelve, and my life is a burden to me, owing to the difficulty of making both ends meet."--"Gentlemen! gentlemen! we are wandering again. Is the captain guilty or not? Mr. Foreman, we none of us intended to offend you. Will you tell us what you think?"
No; the foreman kept his word. "Decide for yourselves first," was his only reply.
In this emergency, the member afflicted with fidgets suddenly assumed a position of importance. He started a new idea.
"Suppose we try a show of hands," he suggested. "Gentlemen who