t. 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 space in the old Court House, the wide
entrance hall, and overflowed into the street.

The foreman solemnly pronounced 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 massacre.

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 pronounced 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
t