The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 62

When the new lawyers appeared the old man made another play at illness to gain delay. The Court ordered him to be brought in on his cot. Again, the physician swore he was lying, that he was gaining in strength daily.

The Judge, however, granted a delay of two days.

The moment the order was issued for an adjournment Brown deliberately rose from his cot and walked back to jail.

The trial was closed on Monday by the speeches of the prosecution and the defense. The judge charged the jury and in three-quarters of an hour they filed back into the jury box.

The crowd jammed every inch of s.p.a.ce in the old Court House, the wide entrance hall, and overflowed into the street.

The foreman solemnly p.r.o.nounced him guilty.

The old man merely pulled the covers of his cot up and stretched his legs, as if he had no interest in the verdict. Entirely recovered from every effect of his wounds, as able to walk as ever, he had refused to walk and had been carried again into the court room. He had determined to receive his sentence on a bed. He knew the effect of this picture on the gathering mob.

The silence of death fell on the crowded room. Not a single cry of triumph from the kindred of the dead. Not a single cheer from the men whose wives and children had been saved from the horrors of ma.s.sacre.

Chilton made his motion for an arrest of judgment and the judge ordered the motion to stand over until the next day. Brown heard the arguments the following day again lying on his cot. The judge reserved his decision and the final scene of the drama was enacted on November second.

The clerk asked John Brown if he had anything to say concerning why sentence should not be p.r.o.nounced upon him.

The crowd stared as they saw the wiry figure of the old man quickly rise. He fixed his eagle eye on them, not on the judge.

Over their heads he talked to the gathering mob of his countrymen. Brown had been a habitual liar from boyhood. In this speech, made on the eve of the sentence of death, he lied in every paragraph. He lied as he had when he grew a beard to play the role of "Shubel Morgan." He lied as he had lied to his victims when posing as a surveyor on the Pottawattomie.

He lied as he had done when he crept through the darkness of the night on his sleeping prey. He lied as he had a hundred times about those gruesome murders. He lied for his Sacred Cause.

He lied without stint and without reservation. He lied with such conviction that he convinced himself in the end that he was a hero--a martyr of human liberty and progress. And that he was telling the solemn truth.

"I have, may it please the court, a few words to say:

"In the first place I deny everything but what I have already admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moving them through the country and finally leading them into Canada. I designed to have done the thing again on a larger scale.

That was all I intended. I never did intend murder or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or to incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.

"Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children--and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust treatment--I say let it be done."

David Cruise was not there to tell of the bullet that crashed through his heart in Missouri. Frederick Douglas was not there to tell that he abandoned Brown in the old stone quarry outside Chambersburg, precisely because he had changed the plan of carrying off slaves as in Missouri to a scheme of treason, wholesale murders and insurrection.

Cruise was in his grave and Douglas on his way to Europe. There was no one to contradict his statements. The mob mind never asks for facts. It asks only for a.s.sertions. John Brown gave them what he knew they wished to hear and believe.

They heard and they believed.

With due solemnity, the Judge p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death and fixed the date on December the second, thirty days in the future.

The old man's eyes flamed with hidden fires at the unexpected grant of a month in which to complete the raising of the Blood Feud so gloriously begun. He was a master in the coming of mystic phrases in letters. He gloried in religious symbols. Within thirty days he could work with his pen the miracle that would transform a nation into the puppets of his will.

He walked beside the jailer, his eyes glittering, his head uplifted.

The Judge ordered the crowd to keep their seats until the prisoner was removed. In silence he marched through the throng without a hiss or a taunt.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

The day of the Great Deed was one never to be forgotten by Cook's little bride. They had been married six months. Each hour had bound the girl's heart in closer and sweeter bonds. The love that kindled for the handsome blond the day of their first meeting had grown into the deathless pa.s.sion of the woman for her mate.

He was restless Sat.u.r.day night. Through the long hours she held her breath to catch his regular breathing. He did not sleep.

At last the terror of it gripped her. Her hand touched his brow and brushed the hair back from his forehead.

"What's the matter, John dear?"

"Restless."

"What is it?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just got to thinking about something and can't sleep.

That's all. Go to sleep now, like a good girl. I'm all right."

The little fingers sought his hand and gripped it.

"I'll try."

She rose at dawn. He had asked an early breakfast to make a long trip into the country.

At the table she watched him furtively. She had asked to go with him and he told her he couldn't take her. She wondered why. A great fear began to steal into her soul. It was the first time she had dared to look into the gulf. She would never ask his secret. He must tell her of his own free will. Her eyes searched his. And he turned away without an answer.

He fought for self-control when he kissed her goodbye. A mad desire swept his heart to take her in his arms, perhaps for the last time.

It would be a confession at the moment the blow was about to fall. He would betray the lives of his a.s.sociates. He gripped himself and left her with a careless smile.

All day she brooded over the odd parting, the constraint, the silence, the sleepless night.

She went to the services of the revival and sought solace in the songs and prayers of the people. At night the minister preached a sermon that soothed her. A warm glow filled her heart. If G.o.d is love as the preacher said, he must know the secrets of his heart and life. He must watch over and bring her lover safely back to her arms.

She reached home at a quarter to ten and went to bed humming an old song Cook had taught her. The tired body was ready for sleep. She did not expect her husband to return that night. He had gone as far as Chambersburg. He promised to come on Monday afternoon.

Through the early hours of the fatal night she slept as soundly as a child.

The firing at the a.r.s.enal between three and four o'clock waked her. She sprang to her feet and looked out the window. The street lamps flickered fitfully in the drizzling rain. No one was pa.s.sing. There were no shouts, no disturbances.

She wondered about the shots. A crowd of drunken fools were still hanging around the Galt House bar perhaps. She went back to bed and slept again.

It was eight o'clock before the crash of a volley from the a.r.s.enal enclosure roused her. She leaped to her feet, rushed to the window and stood trembling as volley followed volley in a long rattle of rifle and shotgun and pistol.

A neighbor hurried past with a gun in his hand. She asked him what the fighting meant.

"Armed Abolitionists have invaded Virginia," he shouted.

Still it meant nothing to her personally. Her husband was not an Abolitionist. She had known him for more than a year. She had been with him day and night for six months in the sweet intimacy of home and love.

And then the hideous truth came crashing on her terror-stricken soul.