Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/201

Rh noon a volunteer company of soldiers, whose drilling room adjoined the recorder's office, were at that very time engaged there in drill. As the crowd broke down the railing which enclosed the sacred space where justice was supposed to rule, a happy thought struck the recorder: opening a door communicating with the drill-room, there came pouring through it in a second, twenty of the volunteers, with fixed bayonets, who charged upon the crowd, driving it before them like sheep. In a moment the court-room was cleared, and in another the prisoners, more nearly dead than alive, were hustled for safety into cells in the basement of the building.

The American blood, which, up to the time of the civil war, boiled at the sight of the bayonet, was running through the veins of the populace at fever heat. All that afternoon and evening thousands of people remained about the building, shouting for the prisoners, demanding that they should be brought out and instantly executed. Harangues were made, in which the story of the robbery was told over and over again; the tardy course of justice complained of; and the probable escape of the prisoners, if left to be tried by the instituted authorities, predicted. The imagination of the multitude was excited by glowing pictures of San Francisco in flames, while murder, robbery, and rapine were being committed by the gangs of "Sydney Ducks" which infested the city. The invariable conclusion of all these speeches was, that the prisoners should be immediately brought out and hung. In the jail now, however, were fifty men with bayonets and loaded muskets, and not a single one of the loud-mouthed orators felt inclined, or manifested the slightest disposition to lead his hearers to an assault, which, although it might be successful, might also cost him his life. Toward night wiser counsels prevailed, and, although a considerable number of persons remained about the jail till morning, no demonstrations of a hostile character were made upon it.

During the night a compromise was effected between a self-constituted committee of commercial men and the judicial authorities. It was agreed that on the following day the two prisoners should be given up to the citizens, not to be directly executed, but to be tried by a Lynch Court. The rumor of this arrangement spread through the town at an early hour, and by noon nearly all the male adult population was gathered about the court-house. All were quiet and orderly, however, and seemed disposed to patiently await whatever was to come. A little before two o'clock, a young and well-known lawyer addressed the people, advising them of the decision which had been arrived at, and submitting to their consideration a number of names of proposed members of the impromptu court. These were voted upon, and the court, in a few minutes, consisting of two lawyers and three merchants, was constituted. A merchant, who afterward became quite prominent as the President