Chapter 10

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There were two other witnesses in the white-washed cell to which Isaac was assigned. It was on the south side, and large, and sunny, and often the door was left unlocked; but the cell looked out into a crumbling grave-yard. One of these witnesses was a boy of about eighteen, pale to the suggestion of a mortal disease. It did not take Isaac long to find out that this complexion did not indicate consumption, but was only prison pallor. The other prisoner was less pathetic as to color, but he was listless and discouraged. The only amusement of these men consisted in chewing tobacco in enormous quantities, playing surreptitious games of high-low-jack, in reading the daily paper, a single magazine, and waiting for the sun to enter the barred window, and watching it in the afternoon as it slipped away. These two men tried to cheer the new comer in a rude, hearty way; but when the country lad learned that they had been in detention for six months already, held by the government as main witnesses against the first mate of their brig, their words were as dust. They only choked him.

"What did you do," Isaac asked, "to get you in such a scrape?"

"We saw the mate shoot the cook; that's all."

"If I'd known," said the pale boy, with, a look out of the window, "how Uncle Sam keeps us so long--I wished I hadn't said nothing. But we get a dollar a day; that's something." And with a sigh that he meant to engulf with his philosophy, the boy turned his face away, so that Isaac should not suspect the tears that salted the flavor of the coarse tobacco.

The dark outlook, the blind future, the hopeless cell, the disordered table, the lazy life that deadened all activity but that of the imagination, the lack of vigorous air, the lounging companionship, but, above all things, the thought of his mother and Abbie, and the brooding over what he dared to call an outrage perpetrated, in the name of the law, upon himself--these things made a turmoil of Isaac's brain. There was a daily conflict between the Christian and the criminal way of looking at his irreparable misfortune which he was surprised to find that even the possession of his father's Bible could not control.

There were times when it needed all his intelligence to keep him from springing on the keeper, and running amuck in the ward-room, simply for the sake of uttering a violent, brutal protest. Then there were hours when he was too exhausted to leave his cot. At such a time he wrote a letter, his first letter to his mother, and he made the keeper promise to have it mailed so that no one could possibly suspect that it started from a prison.

"DEAR MOTHER"--it ran--"I have not written to you for three weeks since I have been here, because I have been sick. I am now in a very safe place, and am doing pretty well. I clear my food and board and seventy-five cents a day. I have not been paid yet. I think you had better not write to me until I can give you a permanent address. I read my Bible every day and love you more dearly than ever. I have tried to do my duty as you would have me. Give my love to Abbie. I will write soon again.

"Ever your affectionate son,

"ISAAC."

The simpleton! Could he not suspect that country papers copy from city columns all that is of special local interest, and more? And did he not know that it is one of the disgraces of modern journalism that no department is so copiously edited, annotated, and illustrated as that of criminal intelligence?

Could he not surmise that on the Saturday following his incarceration the very mountains rang with the news? That it should be mangled and turned topsy-turvy, and that in the eyes of his simple-minded neighbors he should be thought of as the murderer, by reason of his great strength? For how could it come into the intelligence of law-abiding citizens and law-respecting people, that a man should be shut up in prison, no matter what the newspapers said, unless he had _done_ something to deserve it? What did the mountaineers know about the laws of bail, and habeas corpus? And could such news, gossiped by one neighbor, repeated by another, confirmed by a third, fail to reach the desolate farm-house in which a woman, feeble, old and faint of heart, lay trembling between life and death?

The grand jury meets on the first Monday of each month to indict those for trial against whom reasonable proofs of guilt are obtained. The saloon loafer had been shot in the groin, and pending his injuries indictment was waived. In proportion as the wound proved serious and the recovery prolonged, trial was postponed.

Isaac Masters had now been locked up six weeks. He had not yet heard from home, and had only written once. About noon, one day, the keeper came to tell him that a woman wished to see him. Isaac thought that it was his mother, and the shame of meeting her in the guard-room surrounded by tiers upon tiers of murderers and thieves and petty criminals overcame him. The man of strength sat down on his cot, and putting his hands over his white face, trembled violently. The guard, who knew that Isaac was an innocent man, spoke to him kindly.

"Go! go!" said the prisoner in a voice of agony, "and tell my mother that I will be right there."

"Mother!" ejaculated the guard. "She's the youngest mother for a man of your size I ever see." He winked at the sailor, and went.

Then Isaac knew that it was Abbie, who had come alone, and he tightened his teeth and lips together, and went down.

Isaac slowly came down the perforated iron stairs that were attached to his prison wing like an inside fire-escape. On the bench in the middle of the guard-room sat Abbie--a little, helpless thing she seemed to him--facing the entrance, as if she feared to remove her eyes from the door that led to freedom.

Abbie was greatly changed. She was dressed in black. If Isaac had been a free man, this fact would have startled him. As it was, he was so spent with suffering that his dulled mind could not understand it. At first Abbie did not recognize her hearty lover. His huge frame was gaunt and wasted. His ruddy face was white, and his cheeks hung in folds like moulded putty. His country clothes dropped about him aimlessly. From crown to foot he had been devastated by unmerited disgrace. Grief may glorify; but the other ravages.

This meeting between the lovers was singularly undramatic. Each shrank a little from the other. They shook hands quietly. His was burning; her's like a swamp in October dew. He sat down beside her on the bench awkwardly, while the deputy looked at them with careless curiosity. He was used to nothing but tragedy and crime, and to his experienced mind the two had become long ago confused.

"Mother?" asked Isaac, nervously moving his feet. "Didn't she get my letter?"

The girl nodded gravely, tried to meet his eyes, and then looked away. Tears fell unresisted down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe them off. It was as if she were too well acquainted with them to check their flow.

Then the truth began to filter through Isaac's bewebbed intellect. He spread his knees apart, rested his arms upon them, and bent his head to his hands. His great figure shook.

"Oh, my God!" he sobbed. "My God! My God!"

"Oh, don't, Isaac, don't!" Abbie put her hand upon his head as if he had been her boy. "Your mother was as happy as could be. She was happy to die. We buried her yesterday!"

How could she tell him that his mother had died of grief--too sorely smitten to bear it--for his sake?

But Isaac's head rose and fell--rose and fell rhythmically between his hands. His breath came in low groans, like that of an animal smitten dead by a criminally heavy load.

"She sent her love before she passed away. She wanted you to come back to the farm as soon as you could. She believed in you, Ikey, even if you were in prison. She said Paul was in prison, and that it was a terrible mistake. She knew your father's son would not depart from his God!"

As Abbie uttered this simple confession of country faith, the pitiful man lifted up his eyes from the tiled floor and looked at her gratefully. His dry lips moved, and he tried to speak.

"Yes," was all he said, with fierce humility. Then the lack of breath choked him.

"She made me promise not to give you up, and to come and see you. Of course you are innocent, Ikey?" Abbie did not look at him.

"Yes," he answered mechanically.

"I know," she said softly.

Of what use were more words? They would only beat like waves against the granite of his broken heart. The two sat silent for a time. Then Abbie said, "I must go." She edged a little towards him, and touched his coat.

"When will you come out? I will explain it all to the minister and the neighbors. We will be married as soon as you come home. She wanted us to! Oh, Ikey! Oh, Ikey! My poor--poor boy!"

Isaac arose unsteadily. It was time for her to go, for the turnkey had nodded to him.

A fierce, mad indignation at his fate and what it had wrought upon his mother and upon his honorable name blinded him. He did not even say good-by, but left the girl standing in the middle of the guard-room alone. At any cost he must get back to his cell. Supposing his mind should give way before he got there? He staggered to the stairway. He threw his hands up, and groped on the railing. A blindness struck him before he had mounted two steps. He did not hear a woman's shriek, nor the rushing of feet, nor the sound of his own fall.

When he awaked, he was alone in the witness cell; and when he put his white hands to his hair, he felt that his head was shaven. The chipper prison doctor told him that he was getting nicely over a brain fever.

* * * * *

It was three months after this before the case of Tom Muldoon came upon the docket. The man whom the saloon-keeper had shot had but just been declared out of clanger and on the road to recovery.

When the case was called, the district attorney arose from his desk under the bench, and represented to the court that as for some unforeseen reason the said Frank Stevens, who had been maliciously and wilfully assaulted and shot by the said Tom Muldoon, had refused to prosecute, the prosecution rested upon the government, which would rely upon the direct evidence of one witness to sustain the case.

The district attorney, who was an unbought man, and whose future election depended upon the number of convictions he secured for the State, now opened his case with such decision, vigor, and masterful certainty that the policemen and other friends of the defendant began to quake for the boss of the--th Ward.

"And now, your honor, I will call to the witness-stand a young man of stainless life, whom the government has held as a witness since the brutal assault was committed. He is in the custody of the sheriff of the county, Isaac Masters!"

All eyes turned to the door at the left of the bench. There was a bustle of expectancy, and a pallor upon the face of Tom Muldoon.

"Isaac Masters!" repeated the attorney impatiently. "Will the court officer produce the witness?"

The judge rapped his pencil on the desk in a nervous tattoo. Above all things he detested delay.

"I hope Your Honor will grant me a few moments," said the attorney, annoyed. "The witness must surely be here directly."

"It can go over--" began the judge indulgently, when he was interrupted by the entrance of the sheriff of the county himself. This man beckoned to the district attorney, and the two whispered together with the appearance of great excitement.

"Well?" said the judge, yawning. "Produce your witness."

But the attorney for the government came back to his place slowly, with head bent. He was very pale, and evidently much shaken. The saloon-keeper's face expanded with hope, as he leaned aside and whispered to a friendly wardman.

What was the evidence? Where was the witness? Silent? Why? The question flashed from face to face in the court-room. Had he escaped? Or been spirited away? Such things had been known to happen. Or had he become insane during his incarceration? Such things had been known to happen, too. Gentlemen of the law! Gentlemen of the jury! Sheriff of the county! Judge of the Superior Court! Where is the witness? We demand him on penalty of contempt. Contempt of your Honorable Court? Contempt of court!

What? Is he not here? After all this cost to the State, and to the man? Why has he not met his enforced appointment? If not here, why was the innocent witness suffocated behind bars and walls, while the murderer was free to dispense rum?

"Your Honor," began the attorney, with white lips, "a most unfortunate occurrence has happened, one that the government truly deplores. The witness has been suddenly called away. In fact, Your Honor--hem!--in short, I have been informed by the sheriff that the witness cannot answer to the summons of the court. He is disqualified from subpoena. In fact, Your Honor, the witness died this morning."

The lawyer took out his handkerchief ostentatiously. He then bent to his papers with shaking hands. He looked them over carefully while the court held its breath.

"As the government is not in possession of any evidence against Muldoon, I move to nolle prosequi the case."

"It is granted," said the judge, with a keen glance at the bloated prisoner, whom wardmen and officers of the law were already congratulating profusely.

"Order!" continued the judge. "Prisoner, stand up! You are allowed to go upon your own recognizance in the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars."

The next case was called, a new crowd entered the vitiated room, and the court proceeded with its routine as if nothing unusual had happened.

And the silent witness has passed out of every memory but mine, and that of one poor girl mourning in the New Hampshire hills.

THE SUN'S LIGHT

BY SIR ROBERT BALL,

LOWNDEAN PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY AND GEOMETRY AT CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND; FORMERLY ROYAL ASTRONOMER OF IRELAND.

The light of the great orb of day emanates solely from a closely fitting robe of surpassing brightness. The great bulk of the sun which lies within that brilliant mantle is comparatively obscure, and might at first seem to play but an unimportant part so far as the dispensing of light and heat is concerned. It may indeed be likened to the coal-cellar from whence are drawn the supplies that produce the warmth and brightness of the domestic hearth; while the brilliant robe where the sun develops its heat corresponds to the grate in which the coal is consumed. With regard to the thickness of the robe, we might liken this brilliant exterior to the rind of an orange, while the gloomy interior regions would correspond to the edible portion of the fruit. Generally speaking, the rind of the orange is rather too coarse for the purpose of this illustration. It might be nearer the truth to affirm that the luminous part of the sun may be compared to the delicate filmy skin of the peach. There can be no doubt that if this glorious veil were unhappily stripped from the sun, the great luminary would forthwith lose its powers of shedding forth light and heat. The spots which we see so frequently to fleck the dazzling surface, are merely rents in the brilliant mantle through which we are permitted to obtain glimpses of the comparatively non-luminous interior.

As the ability of the sun to warm and light this earth arises from the peculiar properties of the thin glowing shell which surrounds it, a problem of the greatest interest is presented in an inquiry as to the material composition of this particular layer of solar substance. We want, in fact, to ascertain what that special stuff can be which enables the sun to be so useful to us dwellers on the earth. This great problem has been solved, and the result is extremely interesting and instructive; it has been discovered that the material which confers on the sun its beneficent power is also a material which is found in the greatest abundance on the earth, where it fulfils purposes of the very highest importance. Let us see, in the first place, what is the most patent fact with regard to the structure of this solar mantle possessed of a glory so indescribable. It is perfectly plain that it is not composed of any continuous solid material. It has a granular character which is sometimes perceptible when viewed through a powerful telescope, but which can be seen more frequently and studied more satisfactorily on a photographic plate. These granules have an obvious resemblance to clouds; and clouds, indeed, we may call them. There is, however, a very wide difference between the solar clouds and those clouds which float in our own atmosphere. The clouds which we know so well are, of course, merely vast collections of globules of water suspended in the air. No doubt the mighty solar clouds do also consist of incalculable myriads of globules of some particular substance floating in the solar atmosphere. The material of which these solar clouds are composed is, however, I need hardly say, not water, nor is it anything in the remotest degree resembling water. Some years ago any attempt to ascertain the particular substance out of which the solar clouds were formed would at once have been regarded as futile; inasmuch as such a problem would then have been thought to lie outside the possibilities of human knowledge. The advance of discovery has, however, shed a flood of light on the subject, and has revealed the nature of that material to whose presence we are indebted for the solar beneficence. The detection of the particular element to which all living creatures are so much indebted is due to that distinguished physicist, Dr. G. Johnstone Stoney.

In the whole range of science, one of the most remarkable discoveries ever made is that which has taught us that the elementary bodies of which the sun and the stars are constructed are essentially the same as those of which the earth has been built. This discovery was indeed as unexpected as it is interesting. Could we ever have anticipated that a body ninety-three millions of miles away, as the sun is, or a hundred million of millions of miles distant, as a star may be, should actually prove to have been formed from the same materials as those which compose this earth of ours and all which it contains, whether animate or inanimate? Yet such is indeed the fact. We are thus, in a measure, prepared to find that the material which forms the great solar clouds may turn out to be a substance not quite unknown to the terrestrial chemist. Nay, further, its very abundance in the sun might seem to suggest that this particular material might perhaps prove to be one which was very abundant on the earth.

I had occasion to make use of the word carbon in a lecture which I gave a short time ago, and I thought when I did so that I was of course merely using a term with whose meaning all my audience must be well acquainted. But I found out afterwards that in this matter I had been mistaken. I was told that my introduction of the word carbon had quite puzzled some of those who were listening to me. I learned that a few of those who were unfamiliar with this word went to a gentleman of their acquaintance who they thought would be likely to know, and begged from him an explanation of this mysterious term; whereupon he told them that he was not quite sure himself, but believed that carbon was something which was made out of nitro-glycerine! Even at the risk of telling what every schoolboy ought to know, I will say that carbon is one of the commonest as well as one of the most remarkable substances in nature. A lump of coke only differs from a piece of carbon by the ash which the coke leaves behind when burned. As charcoal is almost entirely carbon, so wood is largely composed of this same element. Carbon is indeed present everywhere. In various forms carbon is in the earth beneath our feet, and in the air which we breath. This substance courses with the blood through our veins; it is by carbon that the heat of the body is sustained; and the same element is intimately associated with life in every phase. Nor is the presence of carbon merely confined to this earth. We know it abounds on other bodies in space. It has been shown to be eminently characteristic of the composition of comets. Carbon is not only intimately associated with articles of daily utility, and of plenteous abundance, but with the most exquisite gems of "purest ray serene." More precious than gold, more precious than rubies, the diamond itself is no more than the same element in crystalline form. But the greatest of all the functions of carbon in the universe has yet to be mentioned. This same wonderful element has been shown to be in all probability the material which constitutes those glowing solar clouds to whose kindly radiation our very life owes its origin.

In the ordinary incandescent electric lamp, the brilliant light is produced by a glowing filament of carbon. The powerful current of electricity experiences so much resistance as it flows through this badly conducting substance, that it raises the temperature of the carbon wire so as to make it dazzlingly white-hot. Indeed the carbon is thus elevated to a temperature far in excess of that which could be obtained in any other way. The reason why carbon is employed in the electric lamp, in preference to any other substance, may be easily understood. Suppose we tried to employ an iron wire as the glowing filament within the well-known glass globe. Then when the current was turned on that iron would of course become red-hot and white-hot; but ere a sufficient temperature had been attained to produce the requisite illumination, the iron wire would have been fused into drops of liquid, the current would have been broken, and the lamp would have been destroyed. Nor would the attempt to make an incandescent lamp have proved much more successful had the filament been made of any other metal. The least fusible of metals is the costly element platinum, but even a wire of platinum, though it would stand much more heat than a wire of iron or of steel, would not have retained the solid form by the time it had been raised to the temperature necessary for an incandescent lamp.