The San Francisco call., 1895-11-02

and adverbs. He never used one alone
The jury was charged to be fair, impartial,
honest, unprejudiced, unbiased, unmoved
by sympathy. All the laws tautology
was employed to tell the twelve men that
they must do their simple duty and decide
according to the law and the evidence.
The spectators shifted uneasily when
the Judge had been reading an hour or
more. But Durrant still sat with his two
fingers up against his cheek and his face
telling nothing. In the midst of the
Judges forensic lore child in the rear of
the room began to cry. A baby's voice at
such time and in such a place was gro
tesque. Some of the women-and the
courtroom was packed with them-snick-
cred and giggled. The prisoner looked
once toward the rear of the room and
seemed as amused as the rest. The noise
was soon stilled, and the audience, re-
buked by the Judge, sank to silence again.
But the smile fingered on Durrants lips
for some time.
1t was over at last. The jury had the
slips of paper on which were written the
four fate., any one of which might be that
of the prisoner's-death, life imprison-
ment, long immurement, liberty. Dur
rants eyes followed the papers from the
Judges hand to the jury-box and re-
mained there while the procession moved
from the courtroom TO the chamber where
they were supposed to deliberate on their
verdict. Everybody watched Durrant.
He did not withdraw his eyes until the
back of the last juryman IN the line was
lost through the door.
1t is hard to say what his eyes asked.
There certainly was not entreaty in them,
or defiance either. 1t was not an air OF
not caring what happened and nobody
could read fear in his looks.
On one side of him his mothers glances
paralleled his own. For the first time dur
ing the trial she dropped her air of conf
dence and independence and if ever there
was dumb entreaty it was when this
woman watched the jury go out to decide
whether her son should live or die. The
poor, tired little mother frankly begged
them and her eyes remained directed at
the door long after the arbiters of her SON. /.
fate had gone. On the other side Of Dur
rant sat his father, dumb misery written
on his face. The mother hoped. The
father seemed to know there was no room
for hope. Durrant's lawyer sat biting hi s
mustache with the look of man who
knows he has done his utmost and that
that utmost has not been enough.
Usually when jury retires from a
courtroom there is a rush of the people to
get out Into the air and shake off the
strain. But the spell of the Durrant case
was stronger than this inclination. The
people did not leave the courtroom. A
few moved around in order to see what
Durrant was doing, but most Of them re-
malned seated; the women on the verge OF
Mysteries; the men too interested even to
talk. Three or four women, whose heart.
mad been touched by the loneliness of the
little group-father, mother and accused
son-have during the last weeks of the
trial manifested their friendliness and
sympathy by sitting with them day after
DAY. These and the Deputy Sheriffs
formed hedge about the stricken family
10 shield them from the eyes that would
have noted every gulp of emotion and
every glance of terror. These ladies were
too deeply impressed with the solemnity Of
the time even to chat, as they chatted al
j every previous interval of the case A few