bars, but Rachel remained seated. She closed her eyes, her head tilted slightly back and her face damp with perspiration.
'It's some kind of uproar!' Matthew said; his voice cracked, for he knew full well what it must mean: the citizens of Fount Royal were about to attack the gaol.
'I might have known'—Rachel's voice was calm, but it did tremble—'they would kill me on a Sabbath.'
Outside, Exodus Jerusalem spied the chain that secured the entry, and lifted his axe high. When it came down upon the chain, the iron links held but sparks flew like hornets. Again he lifted the axe, and again it fell with tremendous strength. Still the chain held, however, though two of the links had received severe damage. Jerusalem braced himself, gave a mighty swing, and once more sparks flew. He was lifting the axe for a fourth and what might be a final blow, as one link was near parting from its brothers, when suddenly a figure came out of the mob and raised a walking-stick up across Jerusalem's arms.
'What is this?' Schoolmaster Johnstone demanded. He wore the wine-colored suit and black tricorn that had served him at church. 'I don't know who you are, sir, but I ask you to put aside that axe!'
'And I do not know who thee may be, sir,' Jerusalem said, 'but if thou stand between me and yonder witch, thee must answer for it to God Almighty!'
'Stop him, Johnstone!' Woodward pushed through the crowd, his breathing ragged. 'He intends to kill her! '
'That's right!' Arthur Dawson, who stood at the front of the mob, cried out. 'It's time to put her to death!'
'Kill her!' shouted another man, standing beside Dawson. 'We're not gonna dawdle no longer!'
The crowd responded with more shouts and cries for the witch's death. Jerusalem said loudly, 'Thy people have spoken!' and he brought the axe down again, even more furiously than thrice before. This time the chain broke. Johnstone, hobbling on his bad knee, grabbed at the preacher's arm in an attempt to get the axe away from him. Woodward attacked him from the other side, also trying to gain possession of the axe. Suddenly someone caught Woodward around the throat from behind and pulled him away from the preacher, and another citizen struck at Johnstone's shoulder with a closed fist. The magistrate twisted around and flailed out with the lash, but now the mob was surging forward and several men were upon Woodward before he could use the lash again. A fist caught him in the ribs, and a hand seized the front of his shirt and near tore it from his back. A sea of bodies lifted him from his feet and then he was thrown down to the ground amid the shoals of dangerous boots. He heard thuds and grunts and knew Johnstone was striking in all directions with his cane.
'Go on! Into the gaol!' someone yelled. A boot narrowly missed stomping Woodward's wrist as he tried to gain his footing again.
'Stand back!' he heard a man shout. 'Stand back, I said!' There was the sound of a horse's whinny, followed by the sudden jarring crack of a pistol shot. At that noise of authority, the crowd fell back and at last Woodward found space to pull himself up.
He saw Johnstone on the ground, the schoolmaster's body blocking Jerusalem's entrance to the gaol. Johnstone's tricorn hat lay crushed at his side and the preacher stood over him, Jerusalem's own hat also knocked awry but the axe still in his grip-
'Damn, what a sorry sight you are!' Gunsmoke swirled over the head of Nicholas Paine, who had ridden his chestnut stallion into the midst of the vengeful congress. He held aloft the pistol he'd just fired. 'What is this insanity?'
'It's no insanity, Nicholas!' spoke an older man Woodward recognized as Duncan Tyler. 'It's time for us to come to our senses and put the witch to death!'
'The preacher's gonna do it!' Dawson said. 'One blow from that axe and we're free of her!'
'No!' Johnstone had regained his hat, and now he was trying to stand but was meeting great difficulty. Woodward reached down and helped his Oxford brother to his feet. 'We agreed to honor the law, like civilized men!' Johnstone said when he was balanced on his cane.
Paine stared disdainfully at Jerusalem. 'So you're a preacher?'
'Exodus Jerusalem, called by God to set thy town on the righteous path,' came the reply. 'Dost thou not wish it to be so?'
'I wish for you to put down that axe,' Paine said, 'or I'll knock your damn brains out.'
'Ah, here is a bewitched soul!' Jerusalem yelled, his gaze sweeping the crowd. 'He threatens a man of God and protects the whore of Satan!'
'I look at you, sir, and see only a common fool attempting to enter Fount Royal's gaol without the proper authority, a situation to which I am held accountable,' Paine replied, with what seemed to Woodward marvelous restraint and dignity. 'I'll ask you once more to put down the axe.'
'Nicholas!' Tyler said, and he grabbed hold of Paine's breeches leg. 'Let the man do what has to be done!'
'I have the power of God in me!' bellowed the preacher. 'No evil shall stand against its justice!'
'Don't let him do it, Nicholas!' Johnstone implored. 'It wouldn't be justice, it would be murder!'
Paine moved his horse, breaking Tyler's grip. He guided his mount through the crowd that stood between him and Jerusalem and pulled up barely three feet from the man's daggerblade of a nose. Paine leaned toward him, the saddle's leather creaking. 'Preacher,' he said quietly, 'my next word to you will be presented at your graveside.' He let the solemn promise hang for a few seconds as he and Jerusalem engaged in a staring duel. 'Magistrate, will you please accept the gift of the preacher's axe?'
'I will,' Woodward rasped, and carefully held out his hand. He was prepared to jump aside if Jerusalem took a swing at him.
Jerusalem didn't move. Woodward saw a muscle twitch in the preacher's gray-grizzled jaw. Then a smile that was part sneer and most mockery stole across his face, and in truth that smile was more fearful to look upon than the preacher's expression of righteous anger. 'Mine compliments to thee,' Jerusalem said, as he turned the axe around and placed its wooden handle into the magistrate's palm as gently as mist might settle to the earth.
'Go home, all of you!' Paine commanded the assembly. 'There's nothing more to be seen here!'
'One question for you, Nicholas Paine!' shouted James Reed, who stood next to Tyler. 'You and I both saw them poppets in the floor of her house! You know what she's been doin' to this town! Are you bewitched, like the preacher says? You must be, to turn aside an axe from killin' her!'
'James, if you were not my friend I'd have to strike you down!' Paine shouted back at him. 'Now listen to me, every one of you!' He wheeled his horse around so he was facing the crowd, which by now numbered near sixty. 'Yes, I know what the witch has done to us! But this I know, as well, and mark it: when Rachel Howarth dies—and she will—her wicked life shall be ended by the torch of legal decree, not by a preacher's axe!' He paused, almost daring any man to speak out against him. There were a few halfhearted shouts from the crowd, but they dwindled and perished like little fires. 'I too believe she should die for the good of Fount Royal!' he continued. 'As long as she lives, there is great danger of further corruption. Some of you may wish to leave before she burns, and that is your right and privilege to do so, but . . . listen, listen!' he commanded another heckler, who fell silent.
'We're building more than a town here, don't you understand that?' Paine asked. 'We're building new lives for ourselves, in what will someday be a city! A city, with a courthouse of its own and a permanent magistrate to occupy it!' He scanned the crowd from one side to the other. 'Do we wish to say in the future that the very first trial held in Fount Royal was interrupted by a preacher's axe? Let me tell you, I have seen mob justice before, and it is a sight to sicken a dog! Is that the first timber we wish to lay for our courthouse?'
'There'll be no courthouse!' Reed hollered. 'There'll be no town, no city, nothin' here but ruins unless she's put to death!'
'There'll be ruins aplenty if she's hauled out and murdered!' Paine answered, just as vehemently. 'The first thing to fall to ruin will be our honor! That I've seen men lose as well, and once lost they are as weak as scarecrows against the wind! We have agreed to allow Magistrate Woodward to carry out the trial and sentencing, and we cannot now give over that task to Artemis Jerusalem!'
'Exodus Jerusalem, if thy please!' The preacher had an astounding gift, Woodward rhought; he could mimic thunder with hardly an effort. 'I would remind thee, citizens,' Jerusalem stormed on, 'that the Devil's tongue is formed of silver!'
'You!' Paine snapped at him. 'Shut . . . your . . . hole.'
'Best heed my hole, or thou shalt perish in one that has no bottom!'
