On the third morning of his confinement in Norwich, Hogarth was hurried into the hall of justice and the witness-box—in the dock Fred Bates.

Bates had denied—with sufficient impudence, it seemed: for his wife had been found dead, battered and burned about the face, Bates' own hand also burned by the poker with which, red-hot , he was presumed to have beaten her.

The same afternoon Bates was sentenced to death: but, having had sunstroke in Egypt, was afterwards reprieved.

And two mornings later Hogarth heard the bar of the prisoner's dock clang behind himself.

The speech of leading counsel for the Crown was short: a letter, found on the prisoner, would be produced, in which some busybody had falsely informed the prisoner that Mr. Frankl would meet his sister under a certain elm-tree: and the prisoner, in a crisis of passion, had hurried from the pulpit to that tree, on observing that his sister had left the chapel (to keep a real appointment with Mr. Frankl elsewhere). Under that tree the prisoner had encountered the murdered man, whose Oriental dress on a dark night would give him a resemblance to Mr. Frankl, himself a Jew. The prisoner had then shot the deceased, mistaking him for Mr. Frankl, and had been found holding the smoking weapon, which he admitted to be his own. It was a painful case; but the chain of inference was not assailable.

"Not assailable" found an echo in the minds of solicitor and counsel for Hogarth, who with growing anxiety were awaiting the coming of Margaret with her story of the weapons. Margaret was where her name was changed to Rachel.

Now was the régime of examining counsel for the prosecution. The usher called: "Baruch Frankl!"

A voice in the gallery shouted: "Caps and tassels!" while Frankl, in the witness box, bowed largely to both bench and bar. He put his palms on the red-hot rail, caught them up, put them again, caught up, put them; and still he bowed, while a trembling of the chin gave to his beard a downward waving.

"Now explain to the court the reasons for the state of the prisoner's feelings toward you".

"For one thing I had turned him out, because he could not pay his rent; for another, his sister was inclined, my lord, to be a little bit weak on my account—"

"A little bit what ?" asked his lordship.

"Just a little bit weak, my lord".

"A reciprocal weakness?"

"Well, my lord, you know the world—so do the gentlemen of the jury—"

"And of the Jewry!" screamed his lordship, amid laughter from the merry wigs.

As Frankl stepped down, a name was called at which Hogarth went cold as a ghost: "Rebekah Frankl".

And in she stepped splendent, to stand like a Nubian woman, with that retreat of the hips, her ears torn with their load of gold, her throat and breast ablaze, she bringing into that English court the gaudy heat of the Orient, Baal and Astarté, orgies of Hindoo women in temples of Parvati, the pallid passion of Bacchantes. Though not tall, she was lofty, and her ebon eyes had that very royalty of the stare of the bent form in the dock, whose heart throbbed quick like paddle-wheels that thrash the sea, she his wild divinity, wild wife of his wild youth….

At her shocking beauty the Court stood hushed.

She suggested the East: but in her speech was the energy of the
West—sharp—a bass almost like her father's.

"You recognize the prisoner?"

"Yes". She smiled.

"You were present on the day of the 11th November when the prisoner entered your father's house, and attempted to strike him?"

"Did strike him".

"He did?"

"Yes".

"Did he seem in a passion?"

"Seemed severe".

"Severe! But was he not highly excited?"

"He did not seem so. Frowned and flogged".

"By whom was he ejected?"

"Went of his own accord".

"But—try to remember. What made him go?"

"He suddenly saw me , and fled".

Laughter droned through the court, in which she naïvely joined, while Hogarth's eyes and hers met one instant, blazed outrageously, and dropped….

That was all. Counsel bowed.

The day grew toward evening, and still the stuffy Court sat.

But Margaret Hogarth did not come; a defending counsel finished examination, counsel on the other side again addressed the Court, and again defending counsel. The judge then held the scales, the jury trooped away, the crowd buzzed.

The light in the room seemed to brood to a denser yellow, and anon to grow dim; the stuffed court festered; voices spoke, but low. The King of Terrors was here.

When the jury came, the judge was called, Hogarth stood up, and the clerk of arraigns put a question to the foreman.

The foreman said: "We find the prisoner guilty: but beg to recommend him to the mercy of the Crown".

"On what grounds?" asked his lordship.

"On the grounds of past good conduct and strong provocation".

The judge then placed on his head a square of velvet and passed the sentence of the Court.

During the reign of stillness that followed, while the court clock's ticking was still loud, something which was thrown struck Hogarth on the arm, a red rose, black at heart, that had lain on the breast of Rebekah, who, when Hogarth looked round at her, was calmly drawing her mass of cloak about her throat. ht12mrU0Acp3WrL2EWSMyCaTa0Xd64LWtnl9fJ51FXzAy/vKs+7hf+NdW5IZAcwR