"I have evidence," answered the lawyer, getting briskly on his legs, "which I believe, sir, will justify me in asking for their discharge."
"Where are your witnesses?" inquired the justice, looking hard at Josephine while he spoke.
"One of them is in waiting, your worship," said Mr. Dark, opening the door near which he was standing.
He went out of the room, remained away about a minute, and returned with his witness at his heels.
My heart gave a bound as if it would jump out of my body. There, with his long hair cut short, and his bushy whiskers shaved off--there, in his own proper person, safe and sound as ever, was Mr. James Smith!
The quadroon's iron nature resisted the shock of his unexpected presence on the scene with a steadiness that was nothing short of marvelous. Her thin lips closed together convulsively, and there was a slight movement in the muscles of her throat. But not a word, not a sign betrayed her. Even the yellow tinge of her complexion remained unchanged.
"It is not necessary, sir, that I should waste time and words in referring to the wicked and preposterous charge against my clients," said the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson. "The one sufficient justification for discharging them immediately is before you at this moment in the person of that gentleman. There, sir, stands the murdered Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall, alive and well, to answer for himself."
"That is not the man!" cried Josephine, her shrill voice just as high, clear, and steady as ever, "I denounce that man as an impostor. Of my own knowledge, I deny that he is Mr. James Smith."
"No doubt you do," said the lawyer; "but we will prove his identity for all that."
The first witness called was Mr. Philip Nicholson. He could swear that he had seen Mr. James Smith, and spoken to him at least a dozen times. The person now before h im was Mr. James Smith, altered as to personal appearance by having his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off, but still unmistakably the man he assumed to be.
"Conspiracy!" interrupted the prisoner, hissing the word out viciously between her teeth.
"If you are not silent," said Mr. Robert Nicholson, "you will be removed from the room. It will sooner meet the ends of justice," he went on, addressing the lawyer, "if you prove the question of identity by witnesses who have been in habits of daily communication with Mr. James Smith."