The lowering brutality of his face was unchanged,
but his faculties seemed to be more alive and observant than they
were at the police-office. A frightful blue change passed over
his face, and he drew his breath so heavily that the gasps were
distinctly audible while I mentioned Mary by name and described
the mark or the blow on her temple. When they asked me if I knew
anything of the prisoner, and I answered that I only knew what
Mary herself had told me about his having been her father's ruin,
he gave a kind of groan, and struck both his hands heavily on the
dock. And when I passed beneath him on my way out of court, he
leaned over suddenly, whether to speak to me or to strike me I
can't say, for he was immediately made to stand upright again by
the turnkeys on either side of him. While the evidence proceeded
(as Robert described it to me), the signs that he was suffering
under superstitious terror became more and more apparent; until,
at last, just as the lawyer appointed to defend him was rising to
speak, he suddenly cried out, in a voice that startled every one,
up to the very judge on the bench: "Stop!"
There was a pause, and all eyes looked at him. The perspiration
was pouring over his face like water, and he made strange,
uncouth signs with his hands to the judge opposite.
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