crowded to suffocation; even the open windows revealed a crowd of faces
outside the building, eagerly following the Colonel's words.

He would remind the jury that only a few weeks ago he stood there as
the advocate of a powerful Company, then represented by the present
defendant. He spoke then as the champion of strict justice against
legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the cause of the
unprotected and the comparatively defenseless--save for that paramount
power which surrounds beauty and innocence--even though the plaintiff
of yesterday was the defendant of to-day. As he approached the court a
moment ago he had raised his eyes and beheld the starry flag flying from
its dome, and he knew that glorious banner was a symbol of the perfect
equality, under the Constitution, of the rich and the poor, the strong
and the weak--an equality which made the simple citizen taken from the
plough in the field, the pick in the gulch, or from behind the counter
in the mining town, who served on that jury, the equal arbiters of
justice with that highest legal luminary whom they were proud to welcome
on the bench to-day. The Colonel paused, with a stately bow to the
impassive Judge. It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart as
he approached the building. And yet--he had entered it with an
uncertain--he might almost say--a timid step. And why? He knew,
gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound--aye! a sacred
responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury
were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the
jury to indulge in--er--preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed,
say, "Alas, not!" They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the
perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to
him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong
sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a
careless smile.