The foreman interpreted this formula as a general inquiry into the nature of the trouble. He began precipitately, the quaking men behind him feeling all the despair of being the members of a responsible corporate body of which he was the mouthpiece. “Ye see, jedge, we-uns can’t but feel thar’s thirteen men on this jury.” They felt the judge’s quick gray eye counting them. Perhaps at that moment they were all indifferent to the terrors of their spectral associate, so much more substantial a source of terror being presented to them. The man who had read the Code went on: “Pete Rood—him ez died las’ night—war neither excused nor discharged, so thar’s thirteen men on this jury; an’ we hearn him talkin’ up-stairs along o’ the rest o’ the jurors, sometimes interruptin’ us, an’ we-uns can’t agree ’count o’ thar bein’ a harnt on the jury.” Even he faltered before the look in the face of the judge, whose decisions were thus frankly criticised. There was something terrible in the fury that his eyes expressed. He sat motionless, with an air of great calmness and dignity. His face, however, crimsoned to the roots of his hair. The veins in his forehead stood out swollen and blue. There was an intense silence for a moment. Then his voice, as always, singularly low and inexpressive, broke the pause. “Mr. Sheriff,” he said, “conduct those thirteen—those twelve men to the county jail, and keep them there for contempt of court until ten o’clock to-morrow morning, permitting no communication with others.” He directed that a fine of ten dollars should be entered against each, and forthwith adjourned the court. This high-handed proceeding had no parallel in the annals of the circuit. Harshaw, swelling with rage, found knots of men eagerly discussing it, as he pushed his way out into the hall. Some one was advancing the opinion that a jury in jail was no longer a jury, but merely twelve culprits. Another found a hearty laugh in the reflection that they would not probably discover so many harnts in jail as in the jury-room. A third demanded of Harshaw, “Why didn’t he discharge the jury, and imprison them as men?” “Too afraid of the S’preme Court,” Harshaw hissed between his teeth. “Wish he had! On appeal a premature discharge would operate as an acquittal of the prisoner.”