"What was his crime, Judge?" asked the young man in the Prince Albert coat, as he held out his cup for Mordecai to fill. "Stealing chickens?" The gayety of the table was evidently still with him and upon him. "No," replied the Judge gravely, and he looked at me, the faintest gleam of triumph in his eyes. "Murder." II There are contrasts in life, sudden transitions from light to dark, startling as those one experiences in dropping from out the light of a spring morning redolent with perfume into the gloom of a coal mine choked with noxious vapors--out of a morning, if you will, all joy and gladness and the music of many birds; a morning when the wide, white sky is filled with cloud ships drifting lazily; when the trees wave in the freshening wind, and the lark hanging in mid-air pours out its soul for very joy of living! And the horror of that other! The never-ending night and silence; the foul air reeking with close, stifling odors; the narrow walls where men move as ghosts with heads alight, their bodies lost in the shadows; the ominous sounds of falling rock thundering through the blackness; and again, when all is still, the slow drop, drop of the ooze, like the tick of a deathwatch. It is a prison and a tomb, and to those who breathe the sweet air of heaven, and who love the sunshine, the very house of despair. I myself experienced one of these contrasts when I exchanged all the love and gladness, all the wit and laughter and charm of the breakfast, for the court-room. It was on the ground floor, level with the grass of the courtyard, which a sudden storm had just drenched. The approach was through a cold, crypt-like passage running under heavy brick arches. At its end hung a door blocked up with slouching ragged figures, craning their woolly heads for a glimpse inside whenever some official or visitor passed in or out. I elbowed my way past the constables holding long staffs, and, standing on my toes, looked over a sea of heads--a compact mass wedged together as far down as the rail outside the bench. The air was sickening, loathsome, almost unbreathable. The only light, except the dull gray light of the day, came from a single gas jet flaring over the Judge's head. Every other part of the court-room was lost in the shadow of the passing storm. Inside the space where the lawyers sat, the floor was littered with torn papers, and the tables were heaped with bundles of briefs and law books in disorder, many of them opened face down. Behind me rose the gallery reserved for negroes, a loft having no window nor light, hanging like a huge black shadow without form or outline. All over this huge black shadow were spattered specks of white. As I looked again, I could see that these were the strained eyeballs and set teeth of motionless negroes.