But the Colonel remained motionless and statuesque, with folded arms.

“I have overruled the objection,” repeated the Judge; “you may go on.”

“I am waiting, your Honor, for the—­er—­withdrawal by the defendant’s counsel of the word ‘tampering,’ as refers to myself, and of ‘impertinent,’ as refers to the sacred volumes.”

“The request is a proper one, and I have no doubt will be acceded to,” returned the Judge, quietly.  The defendant’s counsel rose and mumbled a few words of apology, and the incident closed.  There was, however, a general feeling that the Colonel had in some way “scored,” and if his object had been to excite the greatest curiosity about the books, he had made his point.

But impassive of his victory, he inflated his chest, with his right hand in the breast of his buttoned coat, and began.  His usual high color had paled slightly, but the small pupils of his prominent eyes glittered like steel.  The young girl leaned forward in her chair with an attention so breathless, a sympathy so quick, and an admiration so artless and unconscious that in an instant she divided with the speaker the attention of the whole assemblage.  It was very hot; the court was crowded to suffocation; even the open windows revealed a crowd of faces outside the building, eagerly following the Colonel’s words.

He would remind the jury that only a few weeks ago he stood there as the advocate of a powerful company, then represented by the present defendant.  He spoke then as the champion of strict justice against legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the cause of the unprotected and the comparatively defenseless—­save for that paramount power which surrounds beauty and innocence—­even though the plaintiff of yesterday was the defendant of to-day.  As he approached the court a moment ago he had raised his eyes and beheld the starry flag flying from its dome—­and he knew that glorious banner was a symbol of the perfect equality, under the Constitution, of the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak—­an equality which made the simple citizen taken from the plough in the veld, the pick in the gulch, or from behind the counter in the mining town, who served on that jury, the equal arbiters of justice with that highest legal luminary whom they were proud to welcome on the bench to-day.  The Colonel paused, with a stately bow to the impassive Judge.  It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart as he approached the building.  And yet—­he had entered it with an uncertain—­he might almost say—­a timid step.  And why?  He knew, gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound—­aye! a sacred responsibility!  Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury were not, as his Honor surmised, for the purpose of enabling the jury to indulge in—­er—­preliminary choral exercise!  He might, indeed, say “alas not!” They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the perfidy of the defendant.  And they would prove as terrible a warning to him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar’s wall.  There was a strong sensation.  Hotchkiss turned a sallow green.  His lawyers assumed a careless smile.