It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 135

"Silence! hear Judge Lynch!" Silence was not obtained for five minutes, during which the court was like a forest of wild beasts howling.

"I condemn him to be exposed all day, with his dust tied round his neck, and then drummed out of the camp."

This verdict was received first with a yell of derisive laughter, then with a roar of rage.

"Down with the judge!"

"We are the judges!"

"To the rock with him!"

"Ay, to the rock with him."

With this, an all-overpowering rush was made, and Walker was carried off up the rock in the middle of five hundred infuriated men.

The poor wretch cried, "Mercy! mercy!"

"Justice! dog," was the roar in reply. The raging crowd went bellowing up the rock like a wave, and gained a natural platform forty feet above the great deep pool that lay dark and calm below. At the sight of it, the poor wretch screamed to wake the dead, but the roars and yells of vengeance drowned his voice.

"Put his dust in his pocket," cried one, crueler than the rest.

Their thirst of vengeance was too hot to wait for this diabolical proposal; in a moment four of them had him by the shoulders and heels; another moment and the man was flung from the rock, uttering a terrible death-cry in the very air; then down his body fell like lead, and struck with a tremendous plunge the deep water that splashed up a moment, then closed and bubbled over it.

From that moment the crowd roared no longer, but buzzed and murmured, and looked down upon their work half stupidly.

"Hus.h.!.+"

"What is that?"

"It is his head!"

"He is up again!"

"Can he swim?"

"Fling stones on him."

"No! Let him alone, or we'll fling you atop of him."

"He is up, but he can't swim. He is only struggling! he is down again!"

He was down, but only for a moment; then he appeared again choking and gurgling.

"Mercy! mercy!"

"Justice, thieving dog!" was the appalling answer.

"Save me! save me! Oh, save me! save me!"

"Save yourself! if you are worth it!" was the savage reply.

The drowning, despairing man's head was sinking again, his strength exhausted by his idle struggles, when suddenly on his left hand he saw a round piece of rock scarce a yard from him. He made a desperate effort and got his hand on it. Alas! it was so slimy he could not hold by it; he fell off it into the water; he struggled up again, tried to dig his feet into the rock, but, after a convulsive fling of a few seconds, fell back--the slimy rock mocked his grasp. He came up again and clung, and cried piteously for help and mercy. There was none!--but a grim silence and looks of horrible curiosity at his idle struggles. His crime had struck at the very root of their hearts and lives. Then this poor, cowardly wretch made up his mind that he must die. He gave up praying to the pitiless, who could look down and laugh at his death-agony, and he cried upon the absent only. "My children! my wife! my poor Jenny!" and with this he shut his eyes, and, struggling no more, sank quietly down!

down! down. First his shoulders disappeared, then his chin, then his eyes, and then his hair. Who can fathom human nature? that sad, despairing cry, which was not addressed to them, knocked at the bosoms that all his prayers to them for pity had never touched. A hasty, low and uneasy murmur followed it almost as a report follows a flash.

"His wife and children!" cried several voices with surprise; but there were two men this cry not only touched, but pierced--the plaintiff and the judge.

"The man has got a wife and children," cried Jem in dismay, as he tried to descend the rock by means of some diminutive steps. "They never offended me--he is gone down, ---- me if I see the man drowned like a rat--Hallo!--Splas.h.!.+"

Jem's foot had slipped, and, as he felt he must go, he jumped right out, and fell twenty feet into the water.

At this the crowd roared with laughter, and now was the first shade of good-nature mixed with the guffaw. Jem fell so near Walker that on coming up he clutched the drowning man's head and dragged him up once more from death. At the sight of Walker's face above water again, what did the crowd, think you?

They burst into a loud hurrah! and cheered Jem till the echoes rang again.

"Hurrah! Bravo! Hurrah!" pealed the fickle crowd.

Now Walker no sooner felt himself clutched than he clutched in return with the deadly grasp of a drowning man. Jem struggled to get free in vain. Walker could not hear or see, he was past all that; but he could cling, and he got Jem round the arms and pinned them. After a few convulsive efforts Jem gave a loud groan. He then said quietly to the spectators, "He will drown me in another half minute." But at this critical moment out came from the other extremity of the pool Judge Lynch, swimming with a long rope in his hand; one end of this rope he had made into a bight ere he took the water. He swam behind Walker and Jem, whipped the noose over their heads and tightened it under their shoulders. "Haul!" cried he to Ede, who held the other end of the rope.

Ede hauled, and down went the two heads.

A groan of terror and pity from the mob--their feelings were reversed.

"Haul quick, Ede," shouted Robinson, "or you will drown them, man alive."

Ede hauled hand over hand, and a train of bubbles was seen making all across the pool toward him. And the next moment two dripping heads came up to hand close together, like cherries on a stalk; and now a dozen hands were at the rope, and the plaintiff and defendant were lifted bodily up on to the flat rock, which came nearly to the water's edge on this side the pool.

"Augh! augh! augh! augh!" gasped Jem.

Walker said nothing. He lay white and motionless, water trickling from his mouth, nose and ears.

Robinson swam quietly ash.o.r.e. The rocks thundered with cheers over his head.

The next moment, "the many-headed beast" remembered that all this was a waste of time, and bolted underground like a rabbit, and dug and pecked for the bare life with but one thought left, and that was GOLD.

"How are you, Jem?"

"Oh, captain, oh!" gasped poor Jem, "I am choked--I am dead--I am poisoned--why, I'm full of water; bring this other beggar to my tent, and we will take a nanny-goat together."

So Jem was taken off hanging his head, and deadly sick, supported by two friends, and Walker was carried to the same tent, and stripped and rubbed and rolled up in a blanket; and lots of brandy poured down him and Jem, to counteract the poison they had swallowed.

Robinson went to Mr. Levi, to see if he would lend him a suit, while he got his own dried. The old Jew received my lord judge with a low, ironical bow, and sent Nathan to borrow the suit from another Israelite.

He then lectured my lord Lynch.

"Learn from this, young man, how easy it is to set a stone rolling down hill, how hard to stop it half-way down. Law must always be above the mob, or it cannot be law. If it fall into their hands it goes down to their own level and becomes revenge, pa.s.sion, cruelty, anything but--law. The madmen! they have lost two thousand ounces of gold--to themselves and to the world, while they have been wasting their time and risking their souls over a pound of bra.s.s, and aspiring to play the judge and the executioner, and playing nothing but the brute and the fool--as in the days of old."

Mr. Levi concluded by intimating that there was very little common sense left upon earth, and that little it would be lost time to search for among the Gentiles. Finally his discourse galled Judge Lynch, who thereupon resolved to turn the laugh against him.

"Mr. Levi," said he, "I see you know a thing or two. Will you be so good as to answer me a question?"