Judge Maxwell leaned back in his chair and listened, his face a study of perplexity and interest. Now and then he lifted his drooping lids and shot a quick, searching glance at the witness, as if seeking to fathom the thing that he had covered--the motive for Isom Chase's act. It was such an inadequate story, yet what there was of it was undoubtedly true.
After Hammer had asked further questions tending to establish the fact of good feeling and friendship between Joe and Isom, he gave it over, knowing full well that Joe had set back his chances of acquittal further than he had advanced them by his persistency in testifying as he had done.
The jury was now in a fog of doubt, as anybody with half an eye could see, and there was Sam Lucas waiting, his eyes glistening, his hard lips set in anticipation of the coming fight.
"Take the witness," said Hammer, with something in his manner like a sigh.
The prosecuting attorney came up to it like a hound on the scent. He had been waiting for that day. He proceeded with Joe in a friendly manner, and went over the whole thing with him again, from the day that he entered Isom's house under bond service to the night of the tragedy. Sam Lucas went with Joe to the gate; he stood with him in the moonlight there; then he accompanied him back to the house, clinging to him like his own garments.
"And when you opened the kitchen door and stepped inside of that room, what did you do?" asked the prosecutor, arranging the transcript of Joe's testimony before the coroner's jury in his hands.
"Yes; you lit the lamp. Now, _why_ did you light the lamp?"
Here the prosecutor moved his eyes slowly along the two rows of jurors as if he wanted to make certain that none of them had escaped, and as if he desired to see that every one of them was alert and wakeful for what he was about to develop.
"Now, tell the jury _what_ you wanted to see."
"Object!" from Hammer, who rose with his right hand held high, his small finger and thumb doubled in his palm, like a bidder at an auction.
"Now, your honor, am I to be--" began the prosecutor with wearied patience.
"Object!" interrupted Hammer, sweating like a haymaker.
"To _what_ do you object, Mr. Hammer?" asked the court mildly.