Time sped as ever onwards, surely, silently; and justice, with her feet of lead, but hands of iron, closed gradually upon her quarry.  Alfred Bourdon was arraigned before a jury of his countrymen, to answer finally to the accusation of wilful murder preferred against him.

The evidence, as given before the committing magistrate, and the coroner’s inquisition, was repeated with some addition of passionate expressions used by the prisoner indicative of a desire to be avenged on the deceased.  The cross-examination by the counsel for the defense was able, but failed to shake the case for the prosecution.  His own admission, that no one but himself had access to the recess where the poison was found, told fatally against him.  When called upon to address the jury, he delivered himself of a speech rather than a defense; of an oratorical effusion, instead of a vigorous, and, if possible, damaging commentary upon the evidence arrayed against him.  It was a labored, and in part eloquent, exposition of the necessary fallibility of human judgment, illustrated by numerous examples of erroneous verdicts.  His peroration I jotted down at the time:—­“Thus, my lord and gentlemen of the jury, is it abundantly manifest, not only by these examples, but by the testimony which every man bears in his own breast, that God could not have willed, could not have commanded, his creatures to perform a pretended duty, which he vouchsafed them no power to perform righteously.  Oh, be sure that if he had intended, if he had commanded you to pronounce irreversible decrees upon your fellow-man, quenching that life which is his highest gift, he would have endowed you with gifts to perform that duty rightly.  Has he done so?  Ask not alone the pages dripping with innocent blood which I have quoted, but your own hearts!  Are you, according to the promise of the serpent-tempter, ’gods, knowing good from evil?’ of such clear omniscience, that you can hurl an unprepared soul before the tribunal of its Maker, in the full assurance that you have rightly loosed the silver cord which he had measured, have justly broken the golden bowl which he had fashioned!  Oh, my lord,” he concluded, his dark eyes flashing with excitement, “it is possible that the first announcement of my innocence of this crime, to which you will give credence, may be proclaimed from the awful tribunal of him who alone cannot err!  How if he, whose eye is even now upon us, should then proclaim, ’I too, sat in judgment on the day when you presumed to doom your fellow-worm; and I saw that the murderer was not in the dock, but on the bench!’ Oh, my lord, think well of what you do—­pause ere you incur such fearful hazard; for be assured, that for all these things God will also bring you to judgment!”

He ceased, and sank back exhausted.  His fervid declamation produced a considerable impression upon the auditory; but it soon disappeared before the calm, impressive charge of the judge, who re-assured the startled jury, by reminding them that their duty was to honestly execute the law, not to dispute about its justice.  For himself, he said, sustained by a pure conscience, he was quite willing to incur the hazard hinted at by the prisoner.  After a careful and luminous summing up, the jury, with very slight deliberation, returned a verdict of “Guilty.”