Someone screamed in the dark--and with that scream the mob broke. Crowding, cursing, yelling, trampling each other, fighting, the lynchers jammed through the door; they crashed through a fence, they tumbled over boulders--but they made time. A desultory fusillade followed them; merely for encouragement. XII "Ostrich, _n._ A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied the hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly." --_The Devil's Dictionary._ "Fare you well: Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you." --_As You Like It._ Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade paced a narrow beat on the matted floor. Johnny Dines, shirt-sleeved, in the prisoners' box, leaned forward in his chair to watch, delighted. Mr. Benjamin Attlebury Wade was prosecuting attorney, and the mat was within the inclosure of the court room, marked off by a wooden rail to separate the law's machinery from the materi--That has an unpleasant sound. To separate the taxpayer from--No, that won't do. To separate the performers from the spectators--that is much better. But even that has an offensive sound. Unintentionally so; groping, we near the heart of the mystery; the rail was to keep back the crowd and prevent confusion. That it has now become a sacramental barrier, a symbol and a sign of esoteric mystery, is not the rail's fault; it is the fault of the people on each side of the rail. Mr. Wade had been all the long forenoon examining Caney and Weir, and was now searching the deeps of his mind for a last question to put to Mr. Hales, his last witness. Mr. Wade's brow was furrowed with thought; his hands were deep in his own pockets. Mr. Wade's walk was leisurely important and fascinating to behold. His foot raised slowly and very high, very much as though those pocketed hands had been the lifting agency. When he reached the highest point of each step his toe turned up, his foot paused, and then felt furtively for the floor--quite as if he were walking a rope, or as if the floor might not be there at all. The toe found the floor, the heel followed cautiously, they planted themselves on the floor and took a firm grip there; after which the other foot ventured forward. With such stealthy tread the wild beast of prey creeps quivering to pounce upon his victim. But Mr. Wade never leaped. And he was not wild. The court viewed Mr. Wade's constitutional with some impatience, but Johnny Dines was charmed by it; he felt a real regret when Mr. Wade turned to him with a ferocious frown and snapped: "Take the witness!"