"Huh?" Osgood started up, staring about wildly. Then he came to his senses, looked around, understood, fell back and went to sleep again.
And Reder tramped up and down, and Broadwell sat and glared at him, and the others waited. Reder was thinking of that time of his boyhood in Germany when the old peasant had been tried for setting the wood afire.
The whole scene had come back to him, and he found a fascination in recalling one by one every detail, until each stood out vividly and distinctly in his mind. He paced on, until, after a while, Broadwell spoke again.
"Mr. Reder," he said, "I don't see how you can assume the position you do."
"It's no use, I tol' you; no use!"
"But look here," Broadwell insisted, getting up and trying to stop Reder. He took him by the lapel of his coat, forced him to stand an instant, and when Reder yielded, and stood still, the other jurors looked up with some hope.
"Tell me why--"
"I don't _vant_ to have him killedt, I tol' you."
"But it isn't killing; it isn't the same."
"Bah! Nonsense!" roared Reder.
"It's the law."
"I don't gare for der law. We say he don't die--he don't die den, ain't it?"
"But it's the _law_!" protested Broadwell, thinking to add new stress to his argument by placing new stress on the word. "How can we do otherwise?"
"How? Chust by saying not guildy, dot's how."
"But how can we do that?"
"Chust _do_ it, dot's how!"
"But it's the law,--the _law_!"
"Damn der _law_!" roared Reder, resuming his walk. And Broadwell stood looking at him, in horror, as if he had blasphemed.
There was silence again, save for Osgood's snoring. Then suddenly, no one knew how, the argument broke out anew.
"How do we know?" some one was saying. It was Grey; his conviction was shaken again.
"Know?" said Church. "Don't we know?"
"How do we?"
"Well--I don't know, only--"
"Yes, only."
"You ain't going back on us now, I hope?",
"No, but--" Grey shook his head.
"Well, you heard what the judge said."
They could always appeal to what the judge had said, as if he spoke with some authority that was above all others.
"What'd he say?" asked Grey.
"Why--he said--what was that there word now?"
"What word?"
"That word he used--refer--no that wasn't it, let's see."
"Infer?" suggested Broadwell.
"Sure! That's it! Infer! He said infer."
"By God! I guess that's right! He did say that."
"Course," Church went on triumphantly. "Infer! He said infer, and that means we can infer it, don't it?"
Just at that minute a pain, sharp and piercing, shot through Reder's back. He winced, made a wry face, stopped, stooped to a senile posture and clapped his hand to his back. His heart suddenly sank--there it was again, his old trouble. That meant bad things for him; now, as likely as not, he'd be laid up all winter; probably he couldn't sit on the jury any more; surely not if that old trouble came back on him. And how would he and his old wife get through the winter? Instantly he forgot everything else. What time was it, he wondered? This being up all night; he could not stand that.
As from a distance he heard the argument going on. At first he felt no relation to it, but this question must be settled some way. The pain had ceased, but it would come back again. He straightened up slowly, gradually, with extreme care, his hand poised in readiness to clap to his back again; He turned about by minute degrees and said:
"What's dot you saidt?"
"Why," began Church, but just then Reder winced again; clapped his hand to his back, doubled up, his face was contorted. He was evidently suffering tortures, but he made no outcry. Church sprang toward him.
"Get him some water,--here!"
Chisholm punched young Menard; he got up, and pushed the big white porcelain water pitcher across the table. But Reder waved it aside.
"Nefer mind," he said. "What was dot you vas sayin' a minute back?"
"Why, Mr. Reder, we said the judge said we could infer. Don't you remember?"
Church looked into his face hopefully, and waited.
Broadwell got slowly to his feet, and moved toward the little group deliberately, importantly, as if he alone could explain.
"Here, have my chair, Mr. Reder," said Broadwell with intense politeness.
"No, nefer mind," said Reder, afraid to move.
"What the judge said," Broadwell began, "was simply this. He said that if it was to be inferred from all the facts and circumstances adduced in evidence--"
"Besides," Church broke in, "that old woman said he _was_ the fellow, down at the police station--it was in the paper, don't you remember?"