Some persons declare the bill of sale a forgery,--that Romescos has
tried that very same trick twice before. Others say it matters but
little on that score,--that all the law in the country won't restrain
Graspum; if he sets at it in good earnest he can turn any sort of
people into property. A third whispers that the present order of
things must be changed, or nobody's children will be safe. Legal
gentlemen, not interested in the suit, shake their heads, and
successively whisper, "The prosecution never came by that bill of
sale honestly." Creditors, not parties to this suit, and brokers who
now and then do something in the trade of human beings, say, "If
this be the way Marston's going to play the dodge with his property,
we will see if there be not some more under the same shaded
protection."
"Will the counsel for the defence permit his client to inspect this
instrument?" says the learned gentleman, passing it across the
table.
Marston's face flushes with shame; he is overcome; he extends his
trembling hand and takes the fatal document. It is, to him, his
children's death-warrant. A cloud of darkness overshadows his hopes;
he would question the signature, but the signer, Silenus, is
dead,--as dead as the justice of the law by which the children are
being tried. And there is the bond attached to it! Again the thought
flashed through his mind, that he had sold Ellen Juvarna to Elder
Pemberton Praiseworthy. However much he might struggle to save his
children-however much a father's obligations might force themselves
upon him-however much he might acknowledge them the offspring of his
own body, they were property in the law-property in the hands of
Graspum; and, with the forethought of that honourable gentleman
opposed to him--as it evidently was--his efforts and pleadings would
not only prove futile, but tend to expose Lorenzo's crime.
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