There was, too, something evasive in the manner of the man who conveyed to him this intelligence, and this excited his apprehensions, and prompted him to make further inquiries.  His confidence in her faith animated and encouraged his heart.  But when he remembered that the old man was, even when he left, in the clutches of Snivel and Keepum (men whose wealth and influence gave them power to crush the poor into the dust), an abyss, terrible and dark, opened to him, his whole nature seemed changed, and his emotions became turbulent.  He again sought the passenger, and begging him to throw off all restraint, assured him that it would relieve his feelings to know what had become of Maria.  The man hesitated for a few moments, then, with reluctant lips, disclosed to him that she had fallen a victim of necessity-more, that she was leading the life of an outcast.  Tom listened attentively to the story, which lost nothing in the recital; then, with passions excited to frenzy, sought his state-room.  At first it seemed like a sentence of eternal separation ringing through his burning brain.  All the dark struggles of his life rose up before him, and seemed hastening him back into that stream of dissipation in which his mind had found relief when his mother forsook him.  But no! something-he knew not what-whispered in his ear, “Do not reject her.  Faith and hope remains to you; let truth be the judge.”  He stretched himself in his berth, but not to sleep.

On the following morning Maria, with the frail companions of her cell, is brought into court, and arraigned before His Honor, Judge Sleepyhorn, who, be it said to his credit, though terrible in his dealings with the harder sex, and whose love of hanging negroes is not to be outdone, is exceedingly lenient with female cases, as he is pleased to style them.  Though her virtue is as chaste as the falling snow, Maria is compelled to suffer, for nearly an hour, the jeers and ribald insinuations of a coarse crowd, while the fact of her being in the guard-house is winged over the city by exultant scandal-mongers.  Nevertheless, she remains calm and resolute.  She sees the last struggle of an eventful life before her, and is resolved to meet it with womanly fortitude.

The Judge smiles, casts a glance over his assembly, and takes his seat, as Mr. Sergeant Stubble commences to read over the charges against the accused.  “Business,” says the Judge, “will proceed.”

“Now, Judge!” speaks up one of the frail women, coming forward in a bold, off-hand manner to speak for her companions, “I don’t exactly see what we have done so much out of the way.  No ladies of our standing have been up here before.  The law’s comin’ very nice all at once.  There’s a heap, as you know, Judge—­”

“No, no, no!  I know nothing about such places!” quickly interrupts the Judge, his face full of virtuous indignation, and his hands raised in horror.

“Then I may be pardoned for not wearing spectacles,” resumes the woman, with a curtsy.  Finding the judgment-seat becoming a little too warm for his nerves, the Judge very prudently dismisses the damsels, with an admonition to go and do better-in fine, to tighten their tongues as well as their morality.