hrough the unchinked logs of the
wall, they sat on their comfortless perch, half crouching forward, and
chewed, and discussed the testimony. There were frequent intervals of
silence, and in one of these Con Hite was disturbed to see the sketch
of the "witch-face" once more passed from hand to hand. They grew to
have a harried, baited look; and after a time, the rain having
slackened, they came out in a body, and walked to and fro quite
silently in the clearing, chewing their quids and their knotty
problem, with apparently as much chance of getting to the completion
of the one as of the other. They were evidently refreshed, however, by
the change of posture and scene, for they soon resumed the subject and
were arguing anew as they paused upon the bluff, their gestures
wonderfully distinct, drawn upon the sea of mist that filled the
valley below and the air above. It revealed naught of the earth, save
here and there a headland, as it were, thrusting out its dark, narrow,
attenuated demesne into the impalpable main. Further and further one
might mark this semblance of a coast-line as the vapor grew more
tenuous, till far away the series of shadowy gray promontories
alternating with the colorless inlets was as vague of essence as the
land of a dream. Near at hand, a cucumber-tree, with its great broad
green leaves and its deep red cones, leaning over the rocks, and
spanning this illusive gray landscape from the zenith to the immediate
foreground, gave the only touch of color to the scenic simulacrum in
many a gradation of neutral tone. The jurymen hovered about under the
boughs for a time, and then came back, still harassed and anxious, to
their den, with perhaps some new question of doubt. For those without
could perceive that once more they were crowding about the bier and
talking together in knots. Again they called in the country physician
who had testified earlier, an elderly personage, singularly long and
thin and angular, but who had a keen, intent, clever face and the
accent of an educated man. He seemed to reiterate some information in
a clear, concise manner, and when he came out it was evident that he
considered his utility here at an end, for he made straight for his
horse and saddle.

A sudden sensation supervened among the outsiders,--a flutter, and
then a breathless suspense; for within the inclosure, barred with the
heavy shadows of the logs of the walls alternating with the misty
intervals, could be seen t