There was such uneasy hurry, so strange a disenchanted look, a
sort of spiritual dirt, about all that place, and there were--faces! And
I thought: To them my face must seem as their faces seem to me!
Soon I was taken with my accomplices to have my name called, and to be
sworn. I do not remember much about that process, too occupied with
wondering what these companions of mine were like; but presently we all
came to a long room with a long table, where nineteen lists of
indictments and nineteen pieces of blotting paper were set alongside
nineteen pens. We did not, I recollect, speak much to one another, but
sat down, and studied those nineteen lists. We had eighty-seven cases on
which to pronounce whether the bill was true or no; and the clerk assured
us we should get through them in two days at most. Over the top of these
indictments I regarded my eighteen fellows. There was in me a hunger of
inquiry, as to what they thought about this business; and a sort of
sorrowful affection for them, as if we were all a ship's company bound on
some strange and awkward expedition. I wondered, till I thought my
wonder must be coming through my eyes, whether they had the same curious
sensation that I was feeling, of doing something illegitimate, which I
had not been born to do, together with a sense of self-importance, a sort
of unholy interest in thus dealing with the lives of my fellow men.
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