“The witness will now proceed with his testimony.”  This time it was Squire Hawkins who spoke.  Bronson had been attacked with a suspicion that this witness was not just what he wanted, and had relapsed into silence.

Walter’s struggle was by no means ended by the disappearance of Small and Bud.  There came the recollection of his mother’s stern face—­a face which had never been a motive toward the right, but only a goad to deception.  What would she say if he should confess?  Just as he had recovered himself, and was about to repeat the old lie which had twice died upon his lips at the sight of Bud’s look, he caught sight of another face, which made him tremble again.  It was the lofty and terrible countenance of Mr. Soden.  One might have thought, from the expression it wore, that the seven last vials were in his hands, the seven apocalyptic trumpets waiting for his lips, and the seven thunders sitting upon his eyebrows.  The moment that Walter saw him he smelled the brimstone on his own garments, he felt himself upon the crumbling brink of the precipice, with perdition below him.  Now I am sure that “Brother Sodoms” were not made wholly in vain.  There are plenty of mean-spirited men like Walter Johnson, whose feeble consciences need all the support they can get from the fear of perdition, and who are incapable of any other conception of it than a coarse and materialistic ones Let us set it down to the credit of Brother Sodom, with his stiff stock, his thunderous face, and his awful walk, that his influence over Walter was on the side of truth.

“Please proceed,” said Squire Hawkins to Walter.  The Squire’s wig lay on one side, he had forgotten to adjust his eye, and he leaned forward, tremulous with interest.

“Well, then,” said Walter, looking not at the court nor at Bronson nor at the prisoner, but furtively at Mr. Soden—­“well, then, if I must”—­and Mr. Soden’s awful face seemed to answer that he surely must—­“well, then, I hope you won’t send me to prison”—­this to Squire Hawkins, whose face reassured him—­“but, oh!  I don’t see how I can!” But one look at Mr. Soden assured him that he could and that he must, and so, with an agony painful to the spectators, he told the story in driblets.  How, while yet in Lewisburg, he had been made a member of a gang of which Small was chief; how they concealed from him the names of all the band except six, of whom the Joneses and Small were three.

Here there was a scuffle at the door.  The court demanded silence.

“Dr. Small’s trying to git out, plague take him,” said Bud, who stood with his back planted against the door.  “I’d like the court to send and git his trunk afore he has a chance to burn up all the papers that’s in it.”

“Constable, you will arrest Dr. Small, Peter Jones, and William Jones.  Send two deputies to bring Small’s trunk into court,” said Squire Underwood.

The prosecuting attorney was silent.