Love stories; Political fiction; Southern States -- Fiction
Caleb watched them disappear down the corridor to the rear entrance
where two policemen were on guard. Then he went out, bareheaded, on the
front steps and glanced over the heads of the troopers sitting like
statues on their horses in front of the court-house. Yarnall’s body
had been carried in on a stretcher, and a detachment of the governor’s
guard filled the main entrance. Beyond the long files of soldiers the
streets were packed with men and women and even children. No one was
speaking now, no sounds were heard; there was, instead, a fearful
pause, a silence that seemed to Trench more dreadful than tumult.
He stood an instant looking at the scene, strangely touched by it,
strangely moved, too, at the thought of the strong man who had been
laid low and whose life was snapped at one flash, one single missile.
Death stood there in the open court.
Then some one cried out shrilly that there was Caleb Trench, the
counsel for Yarnall, the dead man’s victorious defender, and at the cry
a cheer went up, deep-throated, fierce, a signal for riot. The silence
was gone; the crowd broke, rushed forward, hurled itself against the
line of fixed bayonets, crying for the assassin.
A bugle sounded again. There was a long wavering flash of steel, as the
troopers charged amid cries and threats and flying missiles. A moment
of pandemonium and again the masses fell away and the cordon of steel
closed in about the square.
At the first sound of his name Caleb Trench had gone back into the
court-house. On the main staircase he saw Governor Aylett, Jacob Eaton
and a group of lawyers and officers of the militia. He passed them
silently and went up-stairs. Outside the court-room door was a guard of
police. The door of Judge Ladd’s inner office was open and he saw that
it was crowded with attorneys and officials. Judge Hollis came out and
laid his hand on Caleb’s shoulder.
“My boy,” he said, “this is the worst day’s work that has ever been
done here, and they want to lay it on a poor nigger.”
“I know,” replied Caleb, “he was the only one seen at the window.”
“Yes,” assented Judge Hollis, “but, by the Lord Harry, I’d give
something handsome to know--who was behind Juniper!”
XX
IT was almost morning when Caleb Trench reached home, and the low
building where he had his office--he had closed his shop a month
before--was dark and cheerless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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