A few minutes before, a slight breeze had sprung up. Harold Williams, the McAnarneys, several state troopers, and deputy sheriffs were standing near the columns enjoying the coolness when someone came out and whispered the news. An invisible telegraph seemed to flash the word through Dedham. The white-shirted groups on the grass dissolved, the loungers vanished, from all directions running figures converged on the courthouse. The High Street echoed with footsteps. Upstairs the courtroom windows suddenly blazed with light. In the ten minutes that it took to bring the defendants over from the jail the gates had been closed and a guard of troopers thrown around the courthouse. On the steps a crowd that by now stretched across the street forced its way up to the iron barrier. Those who had gone up to the courtroom earlier were allowed to stay, but, except for the lawyers and the newspapermen, no one else was admitted. Sacco and Vanzetti were brought in through the side entrance, taken up the back stairs, their handcuffs removed, and the door of the cage closed behind them. Sacco looked pale, almost ill. Vanzetti spoke a few words to him, a frown scoring his forehead. Rosina sat close by, making quick birdlike movements, managing to smile each time her husband glanced at her. The pause before the jury entered the room was so oppressive that it became almost tangible. Inside the bar enclosure the lawyers waited, Moore fiddling with a pencil, his hair dank. The deputies stood at the entrances, the stenographers had their notebooks open, Judge Thayer sat in his place. From time to time everyone in the courtroom glanced at the twelve empty seats flanked by the American flag. Then the door opened. The jurors filed in, their eyes fixed on the floor. Seeing their mood, Tom McAnarney raised his arm in a gesture of despair. The lines between Vanzetti’s eyes were like cords. Sacco glanced from one face to another as the jury passed. The jurors settled in their seats. Judge Thayer nodded obliquely at Clerk Worthington who, precise and impersonal, asked them if they had agreed on a verdict. Then, scarcely waiting for the foreman’s reply, he called out “Nicola Sacco.” Sacco rose to his feet as if he were in a trance, and Worthington’s singsong voice continued: “Hold up your right hand, Mr. Foreman; look upon the prisoner. Prisoner, look upon the foreman. What say you, Mr. Foreman, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?” Ripley’s voice was like a croak as he spoke the one word. “Guilty.” “Guilty of murder?” Worthington went on. “Murder,” Ripley answered him. “In the first degree?” “In the first degree.” While the impact of the verdict was still in transit, Worthington rapidly repeated the formula for Vanzetti. “What say you, Mr. Foreman; is Bartolomeo Vanzetti guilty or not guilty of murder?” “Guilty,” Ripley croaked again. “In the first degree, upon each indictment?” “In the first degree.”