Page 330 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

pause during the examination of the convicts who had been
brought to identify the prisoner, to the little room where
Sylvia and her father were waiting. ‘He has quite a tigerish
look about him.’
‘Poor man!’ said Sylvia, with a shudder.
‘Poor! My dear young lady, you do not pity him?’
‘I do,’ said Sylvia, twisting her hands together as if in
pain. ‘I pity them all, poor creatures.’
‘Charming sensibility!’ says Meekin, with a glance at
Vickers. ‘The true woman’s heart, my dear Major.’
The Major tapped his fingers impatiently at this ill-timed
twaddle. Sylvia was too nervous just then for sentiment.
‘Come here, Poppet,’ he said, ‘and look through this door.
You can see them from here, and if you do not recognize any
of them, I can’t see what is the use of putting you in the box;
though, of course, if it is necessary, you must go.’
The raised dock was just opposite to the door of the room
in which they were sitting, and the four manacled men,
each with an armed warder behind him, were visible above
the heads of the crowd. The girl had never before seen the
ceremony of trying a man for his life, and the silent and an-
tique solemnities of the business affected her, as it affects all
who see it for the first time. The atmosphere was heavy and
distressing. The chains of the prisoners clanked ominously.
The crushing force of judge, gaolers, warders, and constables
assembled to punish the four men, appeared cruel. The fa-
miliar faces, that in her momentary glance, she recognized,
seemed to her evilly transfigured. Even the countenance of
her promised husband, bent eagerly forward towards the