San Andreas independent., 1856-11-15


under his management.
"Has your name been entered on the
rolls of the State?" demanded the Judge
suspiciously.
1t is immaterial about my names be-
ing placed on your rolls" answered the
stranger, his thin bloodless lips curling up
into sneer. ~ may be allowed to ap-
pear once, by the courtesy of the bar
Here is my license from the highest tribu-
nal in America!' and he handed Judge
Mills broad parchment.
The trial Immediately went on
stranger evinced but little ingenuity, as
was thought. He suffered each one to
tell his own story without interruption,
though he contrived to make each one tell
it over two or three times. He put few
cross questions which, with keen witnesses,
only serve to correct mistakes; and he
made no notes, which in mighty memories,
always tend to embarrass. The examina-
tion being ended, as counsel for the plain
tiff he had a right to the opening speech,
as we'll as the close; but to the astonish-
ment of every one he declined the former,
and allowed the defence to lead off. Then
shadow might have been observed to fit
across the fine features of Pike, and to
darken even the bright eyes of Prentiss
They saw that they had caught Tartar
but what it was or how it happened, it
was impossible to guess.
Col. Ashley spoke first. He dealt the
jury dish of that close day logic, which
years afterwards rendered him so famous
in the Senate of the United States
The poet, Albert Pike, followed with a
rich strain of wit and half torrent of caustic
ridicule, in which you may be sure neither
the plaintiff nor the plaintiffs ragged at
torney were forgotten or spared.
The great Prentiss concluded for the
defendant with a glow of gorgeous words
brilliant as a shower of falling stars, and
with final burst of oratory that brought
the house down in which the sworn jury
themselves joined, Notwithstanding the
stern "order !" "order!" of the bench
Thus wonderfully susceptible are the
southwestern people to the charms of elo-
quence.
It was the strangers turn. He had re-
mained abstracted during all the previous
speeches. Still and straight and motion
less in his seat, his pale, smooth forehead
shooting high like a mountain cone of
snow; but for the eternal twitch that came
and went perpetually in his shallow cheeks
you would have taken him for a mere man
of marble, or a human form carved in ice
Even his dim, dreamy eyes were invisible
beneath those grey, shaggy eyebrows.
But now at last he rises-before the
bar-railing, not behind it-and so near to
the wondering jury that he might touch
the foreman with his long, bony fingers.
With eyes half shut, and standing rigid
as pillar of iron, his thin lips curled as if
in measureless scorn, slightly apart, and
the voice come forth
At first, it is low and sweet, insinuating
itself through the brain, as an artless tune,
winding It's way into the deepest heart,
like the melody of a magic incarnation
while the speaker proceeds without ges-
ture or the least sign of excitement, to
tear in pieces the argument of Ashley,
which melts away at his touch as frost be-
fore the sunbeam Every one looked sur
prised. His logic was at once so brief
and luminously clear, that the rudest could
comprehend it without an effort.
Anon he came to the dazzling wit Of
the poet lawyer, Pike The curl of his
lip grew sharper-his shallow face kin
died up-and his eyes began to open, dim
and dreary no longer, but vivid as light.
ming, red as fire globes, and glaring like
twin meteors. The whole soul was in the
eye-the full heart streaming out in the
face. In five minutes Pixies wit seemed
the food of folly and his eloquence hor
rible profanity, when compared with the
inimitable sallies and exterminating sar-
casms of the stranger, interspersed with
jests and anecdotes that filled the forum
with roars of laughter.
Then without so much as bestowing an
allusion on Prentiss, he turned short on
the perjured witnesses of Hopkins, tore
their testimony into atoms, and hurled in
their faces such terrible invectives that all
trembled as with ague, and two of them
actually fed dismayed from the Court
House.
The excitement of the crowd was be.
coming tremendous. Their united life
and soul appeared to hang on the burning
tongue of the stranger. Heinspired them
with the power Of his passions. He sat
urated them with the poison of his own
malicious feelings. He seemed to have
stolen nature long hidden secret of attrac-
ton. He was the sun to the sea of all
thought and emotion which rose and fell
and boiled in pillows as he chose. But
his greatest triumph was to come.
His eyes began to glare furtively at the
assassin, Hopkins, as his lean, taper fingers
slowly assumed the same direction. He