Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens
Page: 49

was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the
attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client,
and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that
the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "AT ALL HAZARDS,
CHALLENGE THAT MAN!" But that, as he would give no reason for it,
and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it
called and I appeared, it was not done.

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving
the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed
account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my
narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the
ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together,
as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in
that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader.
It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg
attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the
trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the
church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother
jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I
counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In
short, I made them one too many.

I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I
whispered to him, "Oblige me by counting us." He looked surprised
by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says he,
suddenly, "we are Thirt-; but no, it's not possible. No. We are
twelve."

According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail,
but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no
appearance--no figure--to account for it; but I had now an inward
foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one
large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge
and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping.
I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He