"You needn't lock this morning; you can stay in the corridor, and I'll have your breakfast sent in to you in a moment."
Then Danner put up his big hand and whispered in Archie's ear:
"I'll see the cook and get her to sneak in a little cream and sugar for your coffee."
Archie could not understand this, nor had he then time to wonder about it, for he was being turned into the prison, and there, he knew, his companions were waiting to know the news. Most of them were in their cells. Two of them, the English thief and Mosey--he could tell it was Mosey by the striped sweater--were standing in the far end of the corridor, but they did not even look. He caught a snatch of their conversation.
"What was the rap, the dip?"
"No, penny weightin'."
They appeared to be talking indifferently and were no more curious--so one would say--than they would have been if some dinge had been vagged.
And yet Archie knew that every motion, every word, every gesture of his was important. He tried to walk just as he had always walked. They waited till Archie was at his cell door, and then some one called in a tone of suspense that could be withheld no longer:
"What's the word, Archie?"
"Touched off," he called, loud enough for them all to hear. He spoke the words carelessly, almost casually, with great nonchalance. There was silence, sinister and profound. Then gradually the conversation was resumed between cell and cell; they were all calling out to him, all straining to be cheerful and encouraging.
"That mouthpiece of yours 'll spring you yet," some one said, "down below."
Archie listened to their attempts to cheer him, all pathetic enough, until presently the English thief passed his door, and said in a low voice:
"Be gime, me boy."
That was it! Be game! From this on, that must be his ideal of conduct.
He knew how they would inquire, how some day Mason and old Dillon, how Gibbs and all the guns and yeggs would ask about this, how the old gang would ask about it--he must be game. He had made, he thought, a fair beginning.
Danner brought the breakfast himself, and good as his word he had got the cook to put some cream and sugar in his coffee. Not only this, but the cook had boiled him two eggs--and he hadn't eaten eggs in months.
The last time, he recalled, was when Curly had boiled some in a can--had Curly, over in another part of the prison, been told?
Archie thanked Danner and told him to thank the cook. And yet a wonder possessed him. He had never known kindness in a prison before, save among the prisoners themselves, and often they were cruel and mean to each other--like the rats and mission-stiffs who were always snitching and having them chalked and stood out. Here in this jail, he had never beheld any kindness, for notwithstanding the fact that nearly every one there was detained for a trial which was to establish his guilt or innocence, and the law had a theory that every one was to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, the sheriff and the jailers treated them all as if they were guilty, and as if it was their duty to assist in the punishment. But here was a man who had been declared guilty of a heinous crime, and was to receive the worst punishment man could bestow, and yet, suddenly, he was receiving every kindness, almost the first he had ever known, at least since he had grown up. Having done all they could to hurry him out of the world, men suddenly apologized by showering him with attention while he remained.
When he ate his breakfast Archie felt better,--Mr. Marriott would do something, he was sure; it was not possible that this thing could happen to him.
"Any of youse got the makin's?" he called.
Instantly, all down the corridor on both sides, the cells' voices rang:
"Here! Here! Archie! Here, have mine!"
"Mr. Marriott gave me a whole box yesterday, but I smoked 'em all up in the night!" he said.
XXII
Those persons in the community who called themselves the good were gratified by Archie's conviction, and there were at once editorials and even sermons to express this gratification. Lorenzo Edwards of the _Courier_, who hated Marriott because he had borrowed ten dollars of Marriott some years before and had never paid it back, wrote an unctuous and hypocritical editorial in which he condemned Marriott for carrying the case up, and deprecated the law's delay. The _Post_--although Archie had not talked to a reporter--printed interviews with him, and as a final stroke of enterprise, engaged Doctor Tyler Tilson, the specialist, to examine Archie for stigmata of degeneracy. Tilson went to jail, taking with him tape and calipers and other instruments, and after measuring Archie and percussing him, and lighting matches before his eyes, and having him walk blindfolded, and pricking him with pins, wrote a profound article for the _Post_ from the standpoint of criminology, in which he repeated many scientific phrases, and used the word "environment," many times, and concluded that Archie had the homicidal tendency strongly developed.
The Reverend Doctor Hole, who had his degree from a small college in Dakota, had taken lessons of an elocutionist, and advertised the sensational sermons in which he preached against those vices the refinements and wealth of his own congregation did not tempt them to commit, spoke on "Crime"; even Modderwell referred to it with complacency.
In all of these expressions, of course, Eades was flattered, and this produced in him a sensation of the greatest comfort and justification.
He felt repaid for all he had suffered in trying the case. But Marriott felt that an injustice had been done, and, such is the quality of injustice, that one suspicion of it may tincture every thought until the complexion of the world is changed and everything appears unjust. As Marriott read these editorials, the reports of these sermons, and the conclusions of a heartless science that had thumped Archie as if he were but a piece of rock for the geologist's hammer, he was filled with anger, and resolved that Archie should not be put to death until he had had the advantage of every technicality of the law. He determined to carry the case up at his own expense. Though he could not afford to do this, and was staggered when he ran over in his mind the cost of the transcript of evidence, the transcript of the record, the printing of the briefs, the railroad and hotel bills, and all that,--he felt it would be a satisfaction to see one poor man, at least, receive in the courts all that a rich man may demand.
Within the three days provided by law, Marriott filed his motion for a new trial and then he was content to wait, and let the proceedings drag along. But Eades insisted on an immediate hearing.
When Glassford had announced his decision denying a new trial, he hesitated a moment and then, with an effect of gathering himself for an ordeal, he dropped his judicial manner, called Eades and Marriott to the bench, leaned over informally, whispered with them, and finally, as if justifying a decision he had just communicated to them, observed:
"We might as well do it now and have it over with."
Then he sent the sheriff for Archie, and the bailiff for a calendar.
There were few persons in the court-room besides the clerk and the bailiff, Marriott and Pennell, Eades and Lamborn. It was a bleak day; outside a mean wind that had been blowing for three days off the lake swept the streets bare of their refuse and swirled it everywhere in clouds of filth. The sky was gray, and the cold penetrated to the marrow; men hurried along with their heads huddled in the collars of their overcoats--if they had overcoats; they winced and screwed their faces in the stinging cold, longing for sunshine, for snow, for rain, for anything to break the monotony of this weather. Within the court-room the gloom was intensified by the doom that was about to be pronounced. While they waited, Eades and Lamborn sat at a table, uneasily moving now and then; Marriott walked up and down; no one spoke.
Glassford was scowling over his calendar, pausing now and then, lifting his eyes and looking off, evidently making a calculation.
When Bentley and Danner came at last with Archie, and unshackled him, Glassford did not look up. He kept his head bowed over his docket; now and then he looked at his calendar, the leaves of which rattled and trembled as he turned them over. Then they waited, every one there, in silence. After a while, Glassford spoke. He spoke in a low voice, into which at first he did not succeed in putting much strength:
"Koerner, you may stand up."
Archie rose promptly, his heels clicked together, his hands dropped stiffly to his side; he held his head erect, as he came to the military attitude of attention. But Glassford did not look at him. He was gazing out of the window again toward that mysterious window across the street.
"Have you anything to say why the sentence of this court should not be passed upon you?" he asked presently.
"No, sir," said Archie. He was looking directly at Glassford, but Glassford did not look at him. Glassford waited, studying how he should begin. The reporters were poising their pencils nervously.
"Koerner," Glassford began, still looking away, "after a fair and impartial trial before a jury of twelve sworn men you have been found guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. The trial was conducted carefully and deliberately; the jury was composed of honest and representative men, and you were defended, and all your rights conserved by able counsel. You have had the benefit of every immunity known to our law, and yet, after calm deliberation, as the court has said, you have been found guilty. We have, in addition to that, here to-day heard a motion for a new trial; we have very carefully reviewed the evidence and the law in this case, and the court is convinced that no errors were committed on the trial detrimental to your rights in the premises or prejudicial to your interests. It now becomes the duty of the court to pass sentence upon you."
Glassford paused, removed his glasses, put them on again; and looked out of the window as before.
"Fortunately--I say fortunately, for so I feel about it"--he nodded--"fortunately for me, I have no discretion as to what your punishment shall be. The law has fixed that; it leaves nothing to me but to announce its determination. My duty is clear; in a measure, simple."
Glassford paused again, sighed faintly, and settled in his chair with some relief, as if he had succeeded in detaching himself personally from the situation, and remained now only in his representative judicial capacity.
"Still," he went on, speaking in an apologetic tone that betokened a lingering of his personal identity, "that duty, while clear, is none the less painful. I would that it had not fallen to my lot." He paused again, still looking away. "It is a sad and melancholy spectacle--a young man of your strength and native ability, with your opportunities for living a good and useful life, standing here to hear the extreme penalty of the law pronounced upon you. You might have been an honorable, upright man; you seem, so far as I am able to ascertain, to have come from a good home, and to have had honest, frugal, industrious parents. You have had the opportunity of serving your country, you have had the benefit of the training and discipline of the regular army. You might have put to some good use the lessons you learned in those places.
And yet, you seem to have wilfully abandoned yourself to a life of crime. You have shown an utter disregard for the sacred right of property; you have been ready to steal, to live on the usufruct of the labor of others; and now, as is inevitable"--Glassford shook his head emphatically as he pronounced the word "inevitable"--"you have gone on until nothing is sacred in your eyes--not even human life itself."
Glassford, who found it easy to talk in this moral strain, especially when reporters were present to take down his words, went on repeating phrases he employed on the occasions when he pronounced sentence, until, as it seemed to him, having worked himself up to the proper pitch, he said, with one last tone of regret:
"It is a painful duty," and then feeling there was no way out of the duty, unless he resigned his position, which, of course, was out of the question, he straightened in his seat, turned, looked up at the ceiling and said, speaking more rapidly, "and yet I can not shirk a duty because it is disagreeable."
He clasped the desk before him tightly with his hands; his lips were pale. Then he said:
"The sentence of the court is that you be taken by the sheriff to the penitentiary, and there delivered over into the custody of the warden of the said penitentiary, by him to be guarded and safely kept until the fourteenth day of May next ensuing, on which day the said warden of the said penitentiary shall cause a current of electricity to be passed through your body, and to cause the said current to continue to be passed through your body--until you are dead."
Glassford paused; no one in the court-room moved. Archie still kept his eyes on Glassford, and Glassford kept his eyes on the wall. Glassford had remembered that in olden days the judge, when he donned the black cap, at some such time as this used to pray that God would have mercy on the soul of the man for whom he himself could find no mercy; but Glassford did not like to say this; it seemed too old-fashioned and he would have felt silly and self-conscious in it. And yet, he felt that the proprieties demanded that something be said in the tone of piety, and, thinking a moment, he added:
"And I hope, Koerner, that you will employ the few remaining days of life left to you in preparing your soul to meet its Maker."