', gifted with intelligence,' he repeated, 'though of a lesser sort than our own. Its existence is not to be denied; in the wild, sims craft crude tools of stone, and attempt to imatate ours, in a fashion no brute beast could match.
'But as most of you know, they have no language of their own, and most fail to master the English tongue. Can you speak, Rob?' Douglas asked, turning to the sim.
Its previously placid face grew tense as it struggled against its own slow wits and balky muscles. 'Y-y-y-yess,' it got out at last, and sat back, proud and relieved. Speak bad, it added with signs.
'So you do,' Douglas acknowledged. He concentrated on the judges again.
'Had I bid the sim read to us from the amplest children's primer, of course, it would have been helpless, as it would have been to write its name. No man has yet succeeded in teaching sims their letters.'
'And no man yet has taught a turtle to waltz,' Zachary Hayes broke in.
'What of it? The issue here is niggers, not sims. Perhaps my distinguished opponent needs reminding of it.'
'Yes, Mr. Douglas, we have been patient for some time aw,' Judge Kemble said. 'We shall not be pleased if this course of yours leads nowhere.'
'It leads to the very heart of the issue, your excellency,'
Douglas assured him. 'For consider: in the slavery of ancients, what was their chiefest concern? Why, just as the learned Mr. Hayes has demonstrated, to define who might rightfully be a slave, and who was properly free. The great Aristotle developed the concept my opponent discussed so well, that of the slave by nature. Here, in the person of Rob and in his kind, we see exactly what the Greek sage intended: a being with a body strong enough for the tasks we set, yet without wit enough to set against our will.
'Aristotle admitted that in his day, the most difficult thing to determine was the quality of mind that defined the natural slave.
And no wonder, for he was trying to distinguish among groups of men, and al men far more resemble each other than they differ from sims.
In these modern times, we have a true standard of comparison.
'Mr. Hayes put forth the proposition that the physical appearance of niggers brands them as slaves. That is the same as saying painted plaster will satisfy the stomach because it looks so good. In this court, should we not examine essence rather than exterior? To do so, I should like to summon my client Jeremiah to the witness- box.'
While Douglas was signing to Rob that it could go, Hayes sprang up, exclaiming, 'I protest this, this charades'
'On what grounds, sir?' Judge Kemble said.
'On the grounds that it is obviously a trick, rehearsed s well in advance, intended to make this nigger out to be Aristotle, Charlemagne, and the Twelve Apostles al rolled into one! '
'Aye, there's a stink of collusion in the air,' Judge Scott rumbled.
'How say you, Mr. Douglas?' Kemble asked.
Douglas's smile was beatific, the smile of a man whose enemy has delivered himself into his hands. 'your excellency, I say that even if I were to admit that charge, and I do not; I deny it, it would only help my own case. How , could I conspire with Jeremiah unless he had the brains to plot along with me?'
Hayes opened his mouth, closed it again. His eyes were wide and staring. Judge Hardesty let out a most unjudicial snort, then tried to pretend he hadn't. Judge Scott looked grim, which meant his expression changed not at all. Stifled whoops and cheers came from the blacks at the back of the courtroom. Judge Kemble gaveled them down.
'You may proceed, sir,' was all he said to Douglas. The lawyer dipped his head, waved Jeremiah forward to take the oath. As Jeremiah raised his hand, he thought Douglas might remind the judges that he, unlike a sim, was able to do so.
But Douglas knew when to be subtle. The fact itself spoke louder than anything he could say about it. Facing the courtroom was harder than Jeremiah had expected.
Except for those of the few blacks, he was hard pressed to find a friendly face. The whites in the audience regarded him with looks ranging from stony disapproval to out and out hatred. Harry Stowe was part of the latter group.
Next to him sat the two people Jeremiah knew best here, Charles and Caleb Gillen. The habits of years died hard; it hurt Jeremiah to see the contempt on the face of the man ho had owned him, and to see his master's son scowling at him as at Iscariot. He started to smile, then let his face freeze. They would re-enslave him without a qualm if the judges said they could. That made them no friends of his.
Douglas produced a small, thick book and presented it to Eli Zachary Hayes, 'Would you care to open the Bible at random, sir, so Jeremiah may read the passage you select?' The older lawyer drew back from the book as if it had come from the devil, 'You'll not make me part of your trickery, sin Like as not, you've had him memorize Scriptiture for the sake of looking good here.'
'Again you prove what you'd sooner oppose,' Douglas said. 'If Jeremiah were stupid as a sim, he wouldn't be able to memorize the Good Book. You'll make a man of him in spite of yourself.'
He turned to the bench. 'Would one of you care to make the selection, your excellencies? I don't want any possibility Is of deceit in this, for such as Mr. Hayes to tax me with.'
To Jeremiah's surprise, Judge Scott took the Bible from tin Douglas.
The lawyer's face fell when he saw that Scott did not open the book just anywhere, as he had suggested, but began hunting for a specific passage. 'Here,' the judge said.
Let him read this.' He stabbed at the section he wanted with his thumb, adding for the record, 'This is the seventh chapter of First Chronicles.'
Jeremiah certainly had not memorized it; he had no idea what was in the passage. But when Douglas handed
