“He stares at me. Before he can answer I turn my back and say, ‘That’s all, Judge,’ sort of floating it over my shoulder while I look at the jury.

“But they’re all looking past me. Behind, the nigra’s stood up and starts shouting, ‘I been here all my life and never had no trouble. You all know me—got a wife and boy. What I want with that girl? You listen to me, Lawyer Channing.’”

Channing paled as though transported. “I turn and he’s pointing at me. Right quick Hargrave shouts for the sheriff. Two deputies slap cuffs on the nigras and take them off while the newsmen and photographers are scurrying and taking pictures and scribbling notes. All at once half the folks in town are up slapping me on the back.” Channing’s words were bitter. “But that didn’t last.”

“How do you mean?”

His eyes turned sharp with malice. “Oh, it lasted for the trial. George pulls himself together to sum up. Hargrave did the rest. He instructs the jury that if Moses had been there and not stopped it they should find him guilty. They took one hour. Then the sheriff brings the two nigras in handcuffs back in front of Hargrave. He looks past them at the crowd, making a speech on how the law protects the purity of southern women, every posturing inch a judge. Then he asks if the defendants have anything to say.

“Moses sort of gathers himself, standing up slow but straight. ‘We didn’t rape that girl, Judge. You know that.’ He talks real deep and quiet, so each word drops like a stone. ‘If you punish us who are innocent, if you take me from my wife and boy, then in his own good time, and his own way, the Lord will punish you and yours.’ Hargrave turned white. Then he sentenced both nigras to death.

“It didn’t go bad until afterwards. George and I are on the courthouse steps in a crowd of reporters when someone asks him what he thinks about both nigras getting the electric chair. For a minute George looks fish-faced. Then he gives this sick grin and says, ‘Maybe we’ll get special rates.’ It got real quiet, and the smile died on George’s face like he’d heard himself. It was stupid, George blustering to cover how he felt. He had no dignity, never did. The Birmingham papers crucified him. And some of it slopped onto me.”

“In what sense?”