the
defiance and anger were gone. His black hair was brushed down, smooth
and burnished as a crow's breast. The stock and the great black satin
bow beneath his chin were as immaculate and as perfectly arranged as
father's, and his face itself was calm, almost sweet in expression.

I had been expecting to find a prisoner in a dock, and here he was,
dressed like any other distinguished young gentleman in the court room,
and sitting among the lawyers. All at once he put up his hand to push
back his hair, and I saw that his hands were free. I felt a sense of
unspeakable relief, as if he had already been acquitted. The only
thing that seemed to set him apart from others was that expression of
his, which was troubling in its very sweetness, as if he were not
trying to combat or oppose anything; as if he had foreseen to the end
what would happen, and had given himself up from the first.

Then a voice, high and sing-song, seeming to come from nowhere, began
calling out something which I couldn't understand, and the Mexican I
had seen in the witness room rose from the crowd and shuffled up into
the little railed inclosure. The gentleman who was sitting with Mr.
Dingley got up and began asking questions in a weary monotonous voice,
to which the Mexican replied that his name was Manuel Gora, that he was
a Mexican by birth, and by occupation a barkeeper; that at present he
was without employment, but that previous to the seventh of May he had
for ten years been in the employment of Martin Rood.

I could hear the stir all over the court room, and my own heart began
to beat.

"Ah!" The gentleman who was on his feet seemed to shake off his apathy
and grew very, emphatic, "Now, Mr. Gora--on the night of May the sixth
where were you?"

The man answered in a low voice that all that night he had been in Mr.
Rood's gambling-hall.

"Go on, tell us and the gentlemen of the jury all that you remember of
the occurrences of that night and of the morning of the seventh until
six-thirty o'clock."

When the Mexican began speaking all the rustle died out in the court,
and in the deep silence his precise, mincing utterance made every word
distinct. He had gone on duty at six-thirty o'clock, he said; the hall
had closed at eleven, it being Sunday night, and at that hour Mr. Rood
had not yet come home. He had locked the doors and sat up until two.
Then Mr. Rood came, and went immediately to bed.

Here the lawyer interrupted, "Do I u