Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/312

 lands from Indians. Fifty years after, mebbe so, good President give back. Today bad judge take island from me, some day good judge gonna give back."

So Adam John voiced his faith in the ultimate triumph of justice, but all at once he seemed to realize that this could not be done with human life. "S'pose today you put rope round my neck; s'pose tomorrow you want to take off that cannot do—when I'm dead Indian. That rotten!" This with profound conviction. "You rotten judge! . . . You go to hell!"

Adam John, having pronounced his vituperative sentence upon the man who had just pronounced sentence upon him, sat down apparently quite satisfied with himself, while a blush mantled Judge Allen's marble cheek and he bristled at the indignity put upon him; yet before he could utter the burning reproof that rose to his lips, a shot rang out in the court room. Everybody started and then everybody was still but with eyes fixed on Henry Soderman. He was tall, with billowing, unkempt yellow hair, with gesticulating arms, one hand holding a pistol, from the muzzle of which a faint scarf of smoke made serpentine curves upon the air.

The most surprised-looking person in all the room, the most incensed and outraged, was Judge Allen. He stared for an instant with burning eyes, and yet already he was changed. In the center of his forehead a blue spot no bigger than the end of a lead pencil had appeared, and his marble pallor took on a faint yellowish shade. After that first burning glance, too, his figure stiffened, then began to wilt. From the blue spot in the center of the forehead issued a tiny rivulet of crimson. It trickled between his eyebrows, down