University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
A CONTENTION FOR PLACES.

The trial of a gang of notorious pirates would prove
an eventful circumstance, in any seaport city of the Old
or New World. From the merchant whose rich cargoes
have suffered, or may chance to suffer, from their depredations,
to the poorest man or woman whose son has
shipped as cabin-boy, all have an interest in the apprehension
and conviction of ruffian hordes, whose cruelties
wear a deeper aspect of horror from being added to
the other perils of the deep, and whose remorselessness
in the execution of their barbarities has made their
very name synonymous with crimes of the darkest dye.

At the time of the arrest of Bullet and his gang this
sentiment was rife in the community, and national
invective was hurled with peculiar bitterness at this
species of malefactors. Our late war with England,
originating, as it did, in wrongs committed at sea, and
fought out, for the most part, on that element, had concentrated
public attention on the protection of our
commerce and marine, and scarcely was that contest

brought to a successful issue when we were forced into
a hand-to-hand struggle with Algiers, whose piracies
had rendered her the scourge of Europe no less than
of our own country. The courage and gallantry of
Decatur, the glorious martyrdom of Somers and his
sacrificial band, these, and other deeds of daring and
heroism, had chained the dastardly tyrant of the Mediterranean,
and given our infant navy her earliest title
to a nation's praise, — a foretaste of the future triumphs
which now fill her sails, as she sweeps on in the march
of freedom; praise which has swelled into a hymn of
thanksgiving as we feel how, in this our day of trial,
she girds us with her strength.

But piracy was rampant in those days; and though
the Mediterranean no longer levied black mail on the
nations of the earth, plunderers still infested our western
waters, and no vessel had as yet a safe passport in the
neighborhood of the Caribbean Sea or the Great Gulf.
Voyages to the West Indies were precarious to life as
well as cargo, and merchants sending ships thither were
compelled to balance the probability of gain against the
possible loss of vessels, merchandise, and crew.

Among the unenviable reputations achieved by these
sea marauders, none had attained so terrible a notoriety as
that of Bullet, or the Black Bull of the Indies. This man's
craftiness and rapacity as a freebooter, the autocratic
tyranny with which he lorded it over his crew, and the
cold-blooded cruelties practised by him on his victims,
had made his name a watchword of warning and

terror. Various authorized avengers of the public, following
in his track of blood and crime, had pursued his
fast-sailing craft, and made every effort for her capture,
but to no purpose. So mysteriously did she sometimes
effect her escape, now favored by darkness, now by fog,
and now by some light breeze, which seemed conjured
up purposely to fill her sails, that among superstitious
seafarers mystery was added to her other attributes,
and she was half-believed to be a phantom ship, only
becoming a real monster at the moment of grappling
with her prize. Even sober-minded individuals were
staggered by reports of the audacity with which she
pursued her prey, sometimes doubling on her own track,
and crouching, tiger-like, at the very post lately held by
government sentries, from whom she had fled twenty-four
hours before; — yesterday, a fugitive; to-day, a destroyer.

Proportionate, therefore, to the alarm she had created
and the evil she had accomplished, were the pride and
satisfaction that prevailed among the citizens of our
mercantile metropolis, when her career was suddenly
checked, and that, too, not by the official arm of the
naval service, but by the gallantry of our commercial
marine. Many American vessels had then recently been
engaged in privateering against England; even merchantmen
had been taught a lesson of self-protection, and most
of our vessels could boast of a few guns and boarding
implements, as well as some slight skill in their use. It
was such an armament, consisting of an enterprising
American captain, and his crew of not more than a

dozen men, which had succeeded in bringing the Black
Bull of the Indies to bay, and effecting the capture of the
piratical vessel and its ruffianly owners. The gallant
little merchantman, being bound on a circuitous voyage,
had proceeded at once to our nearest naval station, and
transferred her prisoners to an American frigate, by
which, under government auspices, they had been
brought to New York for trial. The public sense of
justice, amounting to an enthusiasm of abhorrence, had
marked the reception of these felons on their arrival and
introduction to the city prison. This sentiment had
either palled or been superseded by the every-day
emotions of society during the few months that they
had been hid from the sight and knowledge of the community
awaiting trial, but it was roused into fresh
vigor as the time approached which was to seal their
fate; — triumph in their apprehension, curiosity as to their
persons, and exciting rumors of the evidence against
them, combined with hatred of their dark trade, in
rendering them objects of universal discussion and
interest, so that the constable, who had recommended to
Van Hausen to attend the trial, was justified by fact,
when he said of the counsel for the prosecution, that the
country had its eye on him.

The sentiment of interest being thus universal, it
naturally sent up to the trial representatives of all ranks
in society. The solid men of the city, especially those
directly engaged in commercial enterprises, thought it
becoming in them to stimulate justice, and countenance

the law by their presence on this occasion. Aristocratic
ladies (and New York had then a far more select aristocracy
than in these days) neatly veiled their curiosity
to see Bullet, that chief among villains, beneath the laudable
ambition to hear the arguments of counsel in so stirring
a case. Our sharp attorney on the side of the prosecution,
though a noted sifter of evidence, and a zealot in
defence of the law, was less gifted in argument than some
of his brethren at the bar, but in consideration of the
importance of the case government had strengthened
itself by securing the services of a veteran counsellor,
the superiority of whose logical and persuasive power
was unquestioned.

Trump, the great legal orator, had been retained for
the prisoner, at an enormous fee, it was whispered, and
with the certainty of fabulous sums as the price of
acquittal, for who knew (to such a height did rumor run)
what wealth, the spoils of many nations, these robbers
might have hid away in their island caves? The felon,
Bullet, his innocence but proved, might set himself up as
a Monte Christo! It was a case that called for all
Trump's powers, and more. He would exhaust the
superb armory of his great brain, and stun the jury with
his eloquence. The big-paunched yellow coaches, with
Knickerbocker arms on their panels, might honorably
impede the halls of justice to-day, when such intellectual
feasts were in preparation there.

Gigantic crimes electrify humanity. They upheave
the social strata, so that extremes meet. The same

exaggerated reports of the Black Bull, his deeds and his
accomplices, which, echoing and reverberating through
the land, had reached the pinnacles of fashion, had also
stirred the human dregs, and caused them to rise to the
surface. New York neither reared nor imported then
so many desperadoes and Jezebels as at the present day,
but she had her skulking-holes of crime, and her sinks of
infamy, which belched forth boastful villains, drunk with
the craving to look upon the hero in guilt, whose notoriety
they emulated; and penitent and degraded outcasts,
who instinctively flocked to the altar-fire of sin and ignominy,
as moths to the candle, in which their poor wings
have been singed already. Honesty and industry, the
great mediocrity of popular character and sentiment,
justly set against crime and its perpetrators, formed the
basis of the representation this day; but the most characteristic
feature of the assembly was the ruthlessness with
which thieves and vagabonds elbowed the magnates of
the land, and the assurance with which fallen women, bedaubed
or begrimed, strove with the plumed and perfumed
daughters of the aristocracy for precedence and place.

The locality in which the court held its sittings gave
added interest and attractiveness to the occasion. The
New City Hall (for it was then recently finished) was
deservedly a subject of pride to the citizens, and the dignity
of the building gave encouragement to the presence
of citizens, and especially of ladies, who would have
shrunk from ordinary court-rooms, while its central and
conspicuous position, and the prospect of gaining free

admission to its walls, swelled the crowd with idlers.
Admission within the exterior walls of the building
was, for the majority of the throng, the most that
could be hoped, however. The court-room was manifestly
too limited in its proportions to admit more than a
fraction of the crowd; standing room in the halls, or corridors
leading thither, was even a matter of chance; and
in spite of the cold, no small part of the attendants on
the trial were obliged to content themselves with scaling
the windows for a peep inside, hanging round the doorways
in anticipation of stray reports of what was transpiring
within, or gathering in knots within the Park
area, threshing their arms to keep their blood from
freezing, and compensating themselves for the disadvantage
of enjoying only outside places by the freedom with
which they indulged in groans and howls for the prisoners,
and invitations to them to come out and be eaten,
trampled on, or even take their chance of a land fight,
man to man.

These, and similar demonstrations of excitement, did
not reach their height until near the close of the day, and
when the vehemence of the populace had increased with
the progress of the trial. When Hannah Rawle and her
companions entered the Park, it was comparatively early,
and the passions of the rabble at the outposts had not
been inflamed by expectancy and delay. Already, however,
there was striking evidence of the interest that
hung upon the trial. Straggling processions of people
were entering the Park from every direction, and converging

towards the City Hall. Apparently it was filled
to overflowing, for the front steps were crowded, and
window and door places began to be in request. But
Hannah, undeterred by this discouragement, kept resolutely
on her way. Her deaf ears were undisturbed by
the clamors and disputes of the multitude, with whom
she was immediately involved; her broad shoulders
seemed insensible to the press and conflict with numbers.
So wholly was her stern mind preoccupied by her purpose
in coming hither, that even if she could have distinguished
the hootings of the boys, who assailed her
from the fences, tops of lamp-posts, and other “coignes
of vantage,” she would have responded to them only by
indifference and contempt. As it was, there was a certain
imposing grandeur in the way with which the old
woman threw back her head and strode through the
crowd towards her object, as if her purpose were sufficient
passport. Perhaps it was this air of resolution,
even more than her years, or her rustic dress, which at
once marked her for the boys' notice, and caused her to
be hailed with the saucy salutation, “Walk up, granny!
Make way for the old wolf-skin!” — (the latter being an
allusion to her voluminous yellow sables). “Don't wait
outside there, I beg on yer. Yer might ketch cold.
Plenty o' room; walk in, marm, an' take a seat.”

Apparently she took them at their word, for not until
she was half way up the front steps did she falter and
come to a stand-still, firmly wedged in with the crowd.
Angie was just behind her, one step lower down, panting

and breathless, less from her rapid walk and struggle
with the press than from the agitations of her heart
and brain. Unlike Hannah, she experienced a momentary
relief in the check put upon their progress. She
would have been only too glad if it could have been
balked altogether. With what face could she witness
a trial, the very purpose of which she had been
doing her best to defeat? How dared she set her foot
within walls sacred to that justice with which she had
tampered? She would have preferred to stand all day
a humble waiter at the threshold.

They were by this time a little separated from Van
Hausen, who, usually bold as a lion in pushing his way
among his compeers, was, as I have said, but a reluctant
and sheepish attendant on women, and had, therefore,
suffered several ranks of people to intervene between
himself and them. Otherwise he would have taken
advantage, even now, of the fresh arguments that offered
themselves, and endeavored to persuade Hannah to abandon
her object. One needed only to look at her face to
see how vain such efforts would have been. Watchfulness,
combined with indomitable patience, made up its
expression, and proved the force of her resolution.

Fortune is the friend of a strong will, and fortune befriended
Hannah. She, Fortune, came in gusts, — often
her way. The first shock was the arrival of his honor,
the judge, escorted by the sheriff, and heralded by a squad
of constables. The crowd made way, of course, for the
chief magistrate of the occasion. Every body but Hannah

stood staring and agape, watching his passage; but
she, blind to every thing but her own interest in getting
forward, pressed into his wake, and Angie following,
both were wafted into the inner hall, not far from the
entrance to the court-room. Here the judge and his
escort were suddenly swallowed up by a baize-covered
door, which swung noiselessly open to admit them to
some waiting-room or private passage leading to the
further end of the court-room. The wedge which had
forced an entrance for the old woman and her attendant
thus suddenly withdrawn, the crowd collapsed, and shut
them in between two human walls. They were still carried
onward, though almost imperceptibly, by the pressure
from behind, when suddenly a diversion took place
in the popular mind. A report had reached the front
ranks that they were bringing in the prisoners; that a
sight of them might be obtained outside; at the rear of
the building; and now, while the throng without were
pressing to get in, the throng within were pressing still
more violently to get out. Hannah and Angie were
driven back almost on the shoulders of the crowd,
wafted, as it were, by an ebb tide; but the human
waves that had forced for themselves an exit, soon returned,
angry and clamorous, to swell the onward flow.
It was nothing but a trick, a sham; the prisoners were
safely lodged in the dock already, the trial was about to
begin, and at this assurance, on the authority of a constable,
who had officiated as one of their escort, the rush,
the quarrelling, and the squabbling reached their height.
Hannah and Angie, victims of this contention, were in
danger of being smothered, strangled, annihilated. Not
that Hannah was daunted. Tall, strong, and determined,
she defended herself with her elbows, her fists, her voice;
even the boys, ten times worse in a crowd than men,
charged in vain against the iron wall of her stern resolve.
Alone, she might have held her ground, maintained her
progress. But Angie was a clog upon her. Angie, exhausted
and faint, was frightened, bewildered, and so, of
course, undone. Staggering, falling, trampled on at last,
the right and left thrusts of her companion alone saved
her from serious injury. Whether the report, — “A
woman down! They are trampling on her! She is
dying!” — called for official interference, or whether
chance brought help at this crisis, is a matter of doubt.
Certain it is, however, that this extremity turned the
scale of fortune suddenly in favor of our couple of adventurers,
for a constable, the constable who had just been
giving information to the crowd, the very constable of
the prison, Hannah's champion and Angie's admirer,
came at this moment to the rescue, took the unfortunates
in charge, waived off the crowd by the magic of his
badge of authority, and before they knew how or whence
deliverance had come, they had found the sesame to
the mysterious green door by which the judge had disappeared,
and were in a dark, damp lobby, with plenty of
breathing room, and the roar and rush of the crowd
without sounding through the muffled door like the surge
and murmur of an angry sea, from which they had been
saved by a miracle. The cheering admonitions and encouragement
of their rescuer, together with the wholesome
scolding administered by Hannah, soon restored
Angie to presence of mind, and enabled her to suppress
the hysterical throes and nervous tremor which, for some
moments, threatened to master her. Though bruised and
panting, nearly strangled by the strings of her hood, and
with her old silk mandarin rent in several places, she had
escaped further injury, and in reply to the interrogations
of the constable and the pertinacity of Hannah, soon
declared herself able to proceed. She shrank, however,
as her glance rested on the door by which they had found
safety, and shuddered at the execrations and threats that
now and then went up from the crowd. After all, who
knows which had overcome her most, the violence of the
press, or the deep mutterings, the prophetic imprecations,
which all around her had united in heaping on the criminals,
whose blood they claimed at the hands of the law?
They would have torn her to pieces, perhaps, had they
suspected the part she had just been playing, and how she
had cheated the righteous vengeance they were here to
vindicate. Outcast of society, friend of the depraved,
what better fate did she deserve than to be trampled
under the foot of justice!

“Don't you be afeard, miss,” was the constable's
prompt reply to these instinctive thrills of alarm on
Angie's part. “I hain't the slightest idea of letting you
get into such a scrape as that again. I know all about
crowds, I do; I'll take care of you (in his patronizing

way); come with me;” and motioning to Hannah to follow,
he commenced piloting Angie along the dark lobby,
and thence up a winding staircase, which branched off
in an opposite direction to the private entrance by
which the judge had gained access to the court-room.
This stair-way was dark and steep, and at the top of it
a heavy door barred their further progress; but the constable,
who was familiar with its spring, threw it noiselessly
open, and they were instantly greeted by a flood of
light, a murmur of voices, and the sight of a closely
packed assembly; not such a rude press as that from
which they had just so thankfully made their escape, but
a well-dressed female assembly, for the most part accommodated
with seats, but where these were wanting, occupying,
apparently every inch of standing-room. It was
the gallery of the court-room, reserved on this occasion,
for ladies only; and its seats had been filled, since an
early hour in the morning, by the wives and daughters
of the judge and principal lawyers in attendance on the
trial, and such other ladies as were willing to brave the
ordeal of a protracted session, in close quarters and bad
air, for the sake of gratifying their curiosity or thirst for
exciting oratory.

Among the gentry thus accommodated, there was
a sprinkling of females of a different quality, tawdrily
and showily decked out, while the standing-room,
outside the gay circle, presented here and there,
brought out in strong relief against the wall of the building,
the shabby figure and wild, haggard face of some

poor vagrant, familiar enough with the precincts of
courts to know where to find the best places, and bold
enough to press in any where.

Angie, thankful just now for shelter and safety, and
anxious to avoid observation, would gladly have taken a
standing position just inside the entrance door, and on
the outskirts of the gallery. Hannah, too, would have
been content with a situation which, being the most
elevated that the court-room afforded, commanded a
panoramic view of the whole; but their conductor
was not one of that sort of men who do things by
halves.

“You see, miss,” he whispered to Angie, “I've
brought you to the court-end, and now I'm going to get
the young woman that I admire, and the old woman that
I respect, the best seats here.” Upon which, he began
to push his way down the steps of the little middle aisle,
leading to the front row of seats. A man among so
many women, and that man wearing a constable's badge,
was an authority not to be questioned. The timid and
yielding, who were huddled on the steps, readily made
room; one, more obstinate than the rest, and whom
the constable almost stumbled over, was taken by the
shoulder and rudely thrust aside, with the words, “Deuce
take yer, mad Moll, you're always in the way!” “A
little room, if you please, ladies?” was his conciliatory
tone to the aristocratic fair ones, who were disposed to
maintain their ground. “This way, ma'am! this way!”
as he beckoned Hannah and the reluctant Angie on, —

“one, two, three, four, five,” and, as he counted, his
inexorable finger marked off the occupants of the front
seat, — “room for six, ladies; them seats always accommodates
six! here's a place for you, mum,” to Hannah,
who was hobbling slowly to the front. “Move up, and
make room, if you please, ladies,” in a tone, which
meant, “whether you please or not.” “This old lady
has an interest in the trial; come twenty mile or more
to attend it.”

Slowly, reluctantly, measuring the inflexible eye of the
constable, to detect any chance of his relenting, the silked
and feathered ladies drew their narrow skirts around
them, and, with cross looks and a complaining murmur,
moved up. A slender, airy dame, the outside occupant of
the seat, withdrew her person, as far as she could; and,
as Hannah's stiff, unbending form settled squarely into
the space alotted to her, fastidiously strove to protect her
satin pelisse from contact with the old woman's camlet
cloak. Meanwhile the occupants of neighboring seats,
undisturbed in their possessions, stared unmercifully at
Hannah and Angie as “persons interested in the trial.”
“Mother and sweetheart of one of the murderers,
perhaps.” So the whisper went round, — round even to
the ears of Angie, who, having followed Hannah to the
front, where no seat was yet provided for her, was left
at this moment standing, the most conspicuous person in
the house. The constable had in vain counted up the
numbers on the opposite side front; there was no vacancy

there. Angie would have retreated if she could, but
those behind had reseated themselves and hemmed her
in; the constable had gone to fetch a camp-stool; he
had whispered this intention to her, and then disappeared,
with the parting assurance, “I'll have to hand it down
to you over the heads of the crowd; but never fear, I'll
make sure that you get it.”

While awaiting its arrival, however, there was nothing
for Angie but to stand, crimson with fear and embarrassment,
more prominent than the prisoners in the dock,
and a scarcely less pitiable object. She had drawn her
hood, as far as possible, over her face; she had tucked
behind and under it, as well as she could, her stray,
curling locks, for the comb that should have held them
had dropped out and been lost in the crowd. With
womanly instinct she had brushed the dust from
her scant mandarin, and attempted to fold it so as to
hide the rents; but nothing could soothe or hide her
features, distorted by mortification and alarm. The
emotions already alluded to would have been sufficient
to account for such an expression, but within a moment
past it had been aggravated by a more fearful sensation;
for she had just had a vision, — had met a phantom
in her path; pale, emaciated, wild, it had fixed her
with its stare; it had vanished, but it transfixed her
still. Her own humiliating position, the murmur of
suspicion that attached to her as one interested in the
trial, the watchful, accusing eyes, — she was conscious of

them all; but what kept her planted there, so still and
horror-struck, was, more than all, the certainty that, for
the second time to-day, she had seen, overtopping all
other faces, blinding her to all others, the face of a
ghost.

It was a female form this time, and a face that had
once been the face of a girl. But now a soul in purgatory,
a blasted spirit, looked out from that same tenement
of clay, with which Angie had long ago been familiar.
What could it mean? Were all the visions that had
haunted her heart for years to become realities to-day?
One by one were the secret companions of her memory
to rise up and confront her in the face of all the
world? Was this, then, the day of doom? this place the
judgment? Were the degraded, the lost, the very dead
to reappear in testimony? and here, and now, were the
secrets of all hearts to be unveiled?

A little while ago, and she had triumphed in the consciousness
of having disarmed fate. In the agitation of
the present moment she felt it closing in upon her, and,
no longer resisting, she braced herself to meet the
shock.

No wonder that when the camp-stool came, at last,
and by the constable's peremptory orders, was passed
down to her, she failed to see it; that when it was pointed
out, and even set up for her use close beside Hannah,
she took no notice; and that, embarrassing as her situation
was, she would have continued standing for an indefinite

period, scrutinizing the sea of faces above her
with an expectant gaze, had not Hannah given her a
smart jerk, at the same time saying in a loud, shrill key,
which made every body laugh, “Set down, Angie
Cousin! do you s'pose folks behind can see right through
yer?”