Page:The Great Trial of Mahatma Gandhi.pdf/20

 ing tone all produced instantaneous effect on the audience including the Judge and the Prosecutor. For a minute everybody wondered who was on trial whether Mahatma Gandhi before a British Judge or whether the British Government before God and Humanity. Mahatmaji finished reading his statement and for a few seconds, there was complete silence in the ball. Not a whisper was heard. One could hear a pin falling on the ground. The most unhappy man present there was perhaps the Judge himself. He restrained his emotions, cleared his voice, gathered his strength and delivered his oral judgment in careful and dignified words. No one could have performed this duty better. To combine the dignity of his position with the courtesy due to the mighty prisoner before him was no easy task. But be succeeded in doing it in a manner worthy of the highest praise, of course, the prisoner before him belonged to a different category from “any person be ever tried” or is likely to try in future. And this fact influenced his whole speech and demeanour. His words almost fell when he came to the end and pronounced the sentence of simple imprisonment for six years. Tears were seen