XXVII
The Verdict
My companion commenced her examination immediately. I have thought since that it might be a model in many ways for the conduct of a prosecuting counsel in our own courts.
I knew that she considered the accused unfit to live, and that they had been competently tried and condemned already. Yet, now that the decision had been placed with me, and it was her part to accuse them, her questions were direct and fair, without subtlety or dissimulation, seeking the truth without favour, and equally ready to develop a point, whether it were against or for them.
The fact that the spokesman of the accused was accustomed to legal argument, (which she certainly was not), and was of an acute and vigorous mentality, gave additional interest to the quick exchange of thoughts by which their lives were decided.
“We have been told that you are judges among your own kind?”
“Yes.”
“Is it necessary that you should be unanimous, or do you decide by a majority?”
“By a majority.”
“A female was brought before you for stealing food, and was condemned to be beaten?”
“Yes.”
“Were you unanimous in this case?”
“Yes. I should explain. She was first brought before two only. She was condemned, and appealed. The appeal was heard by five, who confirmed the verdict.”
“Did the appeal relate to her guilt only, or to her sentence also?”
“To both.”
“Was the sentence altered at the appeal?”
“It was increased. But that was because the accused attempted escape, while the appeal was pending.”
“What were the two sentences?”
“Eight strokes were to be given under the wings with a five-thonged scourge for the theft, and sixteen similar strokes for attempt to break her prison.”
“Then two of the judges are not responsible for the larger part of the sentence?”
“We are all responsible. It is our law that if a sentence be increased, or an additional one given, by an appeal court, it must be approved by the court below. The power of the appeal court being to confirm, reduce, or cancel.”
“Tell us, in your own way, of what this female was charged, on what evidence she was condemned, why you considered her action worthy of punishment, and defend the sentences.”
“She was charged with the theft of a neighbour’s food. She confessed her guilt. We consider theft deserves punishment, and that the safety of the community requires it. But we do not make the laws. It is our duty to administer them. The responsibility rests with the whole community. We considered the sentence to be fair and moderate, and such as is necessary to prevent the spread of dishonesty among the class of population to which the accused belonged. We have ourselves been condemned with greater severity, for a fault which we do not recognise or understand, by a tribunal of which we were previously ignorant, and under a code of conduct of which we had not even heard, and under which our civilisation could not be maintained for a week.”
“You have not defended the second sentence.”
“I did not suppose that any defence were needed. She had been condemned as guilty, and was in custody, pending appeal against the sentence she had received. To attempt to escape under such circumstances was a defiance of the laws under which we live, and it would be impossible to maintain order or discipline if such incidents should pass unpunished.”
“I understand your arguments, though they may not convince me. The injustice of inflicting further penalties for an attempt to escape those already threatened is too obvious for serious argument, and I notice that you do not attempt to assert it, but prefer to rely upon the argument of expediency only. It is not reasonable to suppose that the victim of such a sentence as you had imposed should be a consenting party thereto, and in this instance you knew that she was not, for she had appealed against it. You could not suppose that she would submit to the sentence, if she could avoid it successfully. By keeping her in custody while the appeal was pending, you admitted this to be so. This duty (if such it were) was performed inefficiently, or the opportunity to escape could not have arisen. For this fault of your own servants you condemned her to a penalty even heavier than that which had been inflicted originally.
“The argument of necessity could have been used with greater force in her own defence as against the first accusation than by you in this connection, and additionally so because the rights of the community, if it be justly organised, must always be subordinate to those of the individuals who compose it. For the rest, I propose to explain exactly why I think the decision of the Dwellers is right, and that your lives should not be continued. You will then be better able to reply in such a way as may be convincing to the one you have chosen to judge you. But there are a few points of fact on which I am ignorant, which may possibly help you, and these I will ask you first. You complain that you yourselves have been condemned under a law of which you had not known, and to which you had not consented. You said also that she had confessed her guilt, and you said later that she appealed both against the verdict and the sentence. This requires explanation. I think you should answer here very carefully, for I think we are confronted with that which threatens the foundation of the strongest of the defences which you have set up.”
For the first time there was a pause of some seconds before his mind took up the challenge. I think he was quick to recognise her meaning, and the danger of which she warned him. I think he also appreciated for the first time the keenness of the intellect which confronted him.
“The explanation is simple. We were dealing with a female of exceptional obstinacy. She was charged with theft. She admitted the theft. That is a plea of guilty according to the custom of our courts. She appealed on the ground that the theft was justified. There is no such thing as a justified theft in the code of any civilised state. Her appeal had no possibility of succeeding. She was in the position of having pleaded guilty, yet of declining to admit that she had done so.”
“Then, when you said that she admitted her guilt, you meant only that she admitted the accuracy of the statements made by those who complained against her. You also admit the facts on which your own condemnation is founded. To that extent you have pleaded guilty also. How can you assert the authority of your own tribunal over this female, and deny that of the Dwellers who condemned you?”
“Very easily. She was a female of our nation, and was under the authority of our laws.”
“Do you contend that she was under the authority of your laws simply because she was a female of your species, or had she herself consented to them?”
“It is necessary in any civilised state to assume the assent, or, in any case, the liability, of individuals to the laws of those among whom they live, and to impose penalties should they fail to obey them.”
“Let us be clear upon our facts before we argue upon them. She had not consented?”
“To obtain individual consent to every law is obviously impossible.”
“She had not consented?”
“Not in that way; but she knew that she must obey the laws of the country in which she lived.”
“That cannot be so, because in fact she refused to do so.”
“She knew that she must submit to the laws of her people, or render herself liable to the penalties provided.”
“But such knowledge—if she had it—did not imply consent?”
“Not necessarily, but, as I have said, the individual must be subordinate to the state, or no civilised community could continue.”
“It is not self-evident that every civilised community should continue. But your contention is clearly not that she consented, but that such consent is not necessary. By whom were you appointed a judge, and under what compulsion, if any?”
“I belong to the class from which judges are chosen, after certain tests have been passed.”
“Would there have been any penalty, had you declined to act in that capacity?”
“No; but I had no reason to do so. It is regarded as a position of honour among us.”
“Do you regard all the laws of your country as just and good?”
“They are not perfect, but they are well adapted for the needs of those for whom they are made, and they are being improved continually.”
“They cannot be very good, or continual improvement would be impossible. What course do you, or your fellow-judges, take when confronted with a bad law?”
“It is not our duty to consider whether a law be good or bad, but to administer it. The responsibility of the law is not on us, but on the whole nation. Ours is to administer it accurately and impartially.”
“The responsibility for a law cannot be upon a whole nation, unless it be agreed unanimously. It is upon those who make or support it. This responsibility must rest in the largest degree upon those who directly enforce it.”
The rapid interchange paused for a moment, and thinking that my companion was about to formulate her accusation, I interposed a suggestion. The swift duel of thought which I have translated into written words as best I can, had taken a few minutes only, but the heat already seemed greater than when we entered the building. Through the open bars of the pens we could see the towering pinnacle of fire, where the seven buildings were now burning together. A wind moved occasionally in our direction, and the high flames swayed toward us.
I said, “If we are not speedy, we shall all burn together. I understand that you wish to set out their guilt as it appears to you, now that you have heard their explanations, to which the horny-beaked orator will make reply, and then I am to judge the issue. Will it not save time if we interrogate the other two before these speeches are made?”
She agreed at once, but added, “I think you should question them. I am conscious that their world is less strange to you than to myself, and you might discover circumstances in their favour which I should fail to do.”
I assented, and we walked down to where the two whose complaint had originated the trouble were flapping with impatience to pour out their wrongs.
I think it was well that I had taken on the interrogation. Here was no keen argument, cool when at its deadliest, but a confused clamour from two vulgarities that exposed themselves without shame, or appreciation of their effect upon the minds that heard them.
I cannot translate the mental invectives, vituperations, recriminations, and contradictions they poured upon us, but the facts came out with unmistakable clearness.
Their tale was this. Through the vague impression of a complex and highly-organised civilisation, there stood out clearly a group of dwellings, inhabited by members of a trading class, of one of which these two were occupants, and (apparently) owners.
As was customary, they did not use the ground floor, on account of a plague of white slugs which rose from the ground at certain seasons and crawled into the houses. The higher floors were gained through circular openings in the ceilings, to which they flew from perches in the rooms below. This left much of their domestic economy unexplained, but I did not pursue a subject that was only indirectly material to the inquiry. I gained an impression that the higher floors were in some way immune from these slugs, which were a serious danger or annoyance, and of which no method had been discovered by which to keep the ground floor entirely free. For this reason it was usual to allow an industrial worker of the poorer kind to occupy it in return for certain menial services. These sub-tenants were not allowed to fly into the upper stories under any circumstances.
Until a few weeks earlier, the present couple had lived prosperously. Trade was good, and they had only been detected in cheating once in every moon as the law permitted. They had been fortunate enough to breed a daughter with a bright yellow blotch on either shoulder, which they had been able to sell for a large sum.
The ground floor had been occupied by a female who had been employed in some industrial process by which the wings were liable to become damaged, and had lost the use of hers, so that the ring on which she perched at night had to be hanged within a few feet of the ground. A beneficent law provided that those who suffered in this way could take certain pickings from the main roads, by the sale of which life could be maintained. She had, however, complained of a growing blindness, which prevented her from snatching her due share of this bounty, and when the time of the spring meal approached had caused annoyance by waylaying her employers as they went in and out of the house, and petitioning that they would provide food for her. They declined a request so unreasonable, and had advised her kindly of the methods of suicide best adapted to her condition, and when they saw that their advice was not taken, they even went the length of recommending her to a medical practitioner who would destroy her without a fee, in return for an opportunity of investigating the diseases from which she suffered. Unfortunately, they did not kill her themselves, which they could have done for a slight penalty, for their laws are, in this instance, more just than ours, the penalty of murder being in proportion to the expectation of the victim’s life, and its estimated value to him. Then they might have committed the murder jointly, and halved the penalty between them, for in this also their law is more equitable than ours, and if two or three people unite to commit a crime they can each be punished for one-half or one-third of the crime, or for their fair proportion only.
But the time passed without decisive action being taken, till the week of the summer meal approached, and the wretch, being blinder than before, and weak from six months’ fasting, had failed to gain the right to a meal for herself, and had again resorted to begging them to supply her need.
On the eve of the feast they had collected their food in an upper room, and had gone out to barter a ring-eared monkey, very quaintly tattooed, for the wing-powder which they would need after the second day’s eating, and on coming back they had found her sitting on the edge of the aperture above the room she occupied, afraid to flutter down, owing to the condition of her wings. They found a savoury mess of pomegranates and pig’s liver, (such as is eaten on the first day before sustaining food is taken), had been entirely consumed, and two of the food-balls also. She would give no explanation of how she climbed into the room, and it was supposed that she must have had an accomplice, who should have helped her down also, but who had become alarmed, and fled. She admitted that she had eaten the food, but claimed that she was obliged to do so, and that there was an abundance remaining for their own necessities.
The two judges before whom she was taken had treated her with great consideration. They had sentenced her to eight strokes, which she would almost certainly have survived, in view of the food that she had swallowed, and they had ordered that the sentence should not be executed for three days, during which she should be placed in a cell designed for such cases, where she could release herself from her troubles without further difficulty.
The cell had a deep well, in which she could have drowned herself very easily had she had sufficient sense to do so. A kindly regulation had provided that the sides of the well, above the water, should be deep and smooth, as there had been distressing instances of prisoners who had changed their minds when half-drowned and had clambered out, so that all their misery was repeated. There were also weights which she could have tied to her feet, had she wished to do so.
Instead, however, of following these suggestions, she had contumaciously appealed against the sentence she had received, which had delayed its execution, and entailed a two-days’ journey into the Upper City for her accusers. The food she had taken appeared to have renewed her youth, or rather her energy, (for she was not old), so that she had attempted to escape her confinement, and had almost succeeded; and when rebuked by the Superior Judges for not availing herself of the provision for her comfort which the cell provided, she had actually uncrossed her legs, and shaken the damaged wings derisively, asking if she were likely to commit suicide with three months’ food in her body.
I endeavoured to put such questions as might have elicited any extenuating circumstance which had bearing on the main incident, such as a past kindness, or a past ingratitude, but I obtained nothing that was helpful.
Their replies were inconsequent, and their minds worked round continually to self-reproaches that they had not killed her themselves, and to a choking indignation at the thought that it was the stolen food in her body which had supplied her with strength to contest the issue.
We went back to where the Chief Justice crouched unmoving, but with eyes that had watched the scene with sombre keenness.
My companion commenced immediately—“I have thought of all that you said, and of much that your thoughts implied, though it was not stated. The conditions of life which you showed me are beneath anything I had imagined previously, though I have heard strange and dark things from the friend beside me. It may be that your own state is no worse than that to which he is native, but that it appears different to him because he is of a different kind. For when I heard how that half-blinded creature, whom you had condemned to wretchedness, and would have persuaded to destruction, shook derisive wings at your inability to subdue her, it came to me that even in these dark and dreadful worlds there may be fair ways to tread for such spirits as are sufficient in themselves to find them. It seemed to me for a moment that our spirits are the only reality, and all the rest illusion. Yet, if that be so, round spirits of what kind can so dark a dream have gathered as that which has brought you here? It is a thought which I cannot grasp in a moment, but to which I may give much time when occasion allows it. Meanwhile, my inclination is changed. I still think that you should die, and my Leader, who is wiser than I, was of the same mind, as were the Dwellers who condemned you. But I am less sure than I was, and I will say nothing more to urge it. You have chosen another judge, and I am content for him to decide it.”
When she ceased he looked at her in silence for a few seconds. I think he was regretting again the choice of judge which the majority had forced upon him. Then he accepted the position, and seeing that I was waiting to consider the defence which he would set up, he opened his mind toward me.
“You are of a world different from ours,” he began, “but sufficiently like it to understand how necessary are the laws which regulate the possession of property, and that any law without penalty would be no deterrent. You know also that the function of a judge is different from that of a legislator, and that it would be grotesque to punish a judge for a defect in the law which he dispenses. We have fallen into strange hands, of whom we knew nothing previously, and it is by the mercy of circumstance that we are able to lay our case before you. I can do this confidently because I know that you will understand our position, and I am assured that you are not in yourself either unjust or merciless. I will not weary you with many thoughts, for I know that you are in haste, and we would ourselves very gladly be free from the increasing heat and danger. Our defence is threefold, and I submit that each point is in itself sufficient: (1) We think that the sentence was fair; (2) if it were harsh, which we deny, it was in accordance with the laws of our country, which we were sworn to administer; (3) if these two pleas should fail—which is beyond my imagination—it would still remain that for any possible fault we have been tortured and punished already beyond our deserving. Consider that it is in the name of mercy that this fate has been threatened! We are accused of brutality, but we have never sentenced any of our people to be boiled alive, even for the foulest crimes. It may be that the Dwellers did not intend that such a horror should happen. I think it more likely that they proposed to alarm us only, and foresaw your coming, and that you would release us, so that we can go back to our duties, knowing their wishes, and introducing their methods into our country, with consequences which they will no doubt themselves direct to a satisfactory issue.”
I replied, “I will not torture your minds with a long judgment, though the issues which you have raised invite it. I will tell you at once that the first two pleas fail. The sentence was not fair, and on hearing the evidence you should rather have addressed your minds to the inequity of the social conditions which it revealed, and to exhort the prosecutors to observe a higher standard of social morality in future. Having heard them, however, I think your arguments would have been wasted. They, at least, are unfit to exist, and as I do not wish to prolong their agony, after they have heard this decision, I propose to deal with them before I complete my judgment.”
I then went with my companion to the two pens which contained them, and drew out the bars on which they rested. As we thought the male culprit was slightly the less repulsive of the two, we soused him first, that his trouble should be the sooner over.
As we commenced to draw the bars, their cries became deafening in volume, and the female, in a frenzy of fear and vituperation, commenced spitting in our direction.
As the last bar withdrew, the male leapt to the uprights at the side, but found that they were made of a material too smooth for his grasp to hold, and he fell backward into the water which bubbled beneath him.
Having disposed of the female in the same way, I resumed my verdict. “The second point, as I have said, is of no more avail than the first, because it appears to me to be a very evil thing that legislators or judges should attempt to exalt the laws they dispense as being higher than the essential justice which they are intended to demonstrate. It should be the greatest difficulty in putting an unjust law into operation that no judges of good character should be found who would consent to enforce it. A judge who solemnly administers a law which he knows in his heart to be unjust is baser than one who takes bribes from a litigant. In the one case he is bribed by an individual to do injustice at some risk to his own position; in the other he is bribed by the State to do injustice, with an assurance that it can be perpetrated with impunity.
“But your third point is of a different quality. To consider it fully would take more time than is now available, and we might all be involved in a common fate the while I should do so. It appears to me that there is force in your contention that the fate to which you have been condemned has an even greater severity than the harshness of your own laws, for which they have condemned you. I am not sure that this is so, but it is at least a plausible and confusing argument. I have endeavoured to consider it from their standpoint, and I think that their reply would be that there is no point in the comparison, because they have acted from different motives, and with different intentions. Your laws are designed to produce certain courses of conduct in your individual citizens, to repress tendencies which might be subversive of the State as it is organised, and as you were content to continue it; you endeavoured (we may hope) to use no more harshness than you considered that these objects required. They have no such objects in view. They do not make you examples to others, nor design to coerce you into observing any rules of future conduct. They regard you as having a mentality so base that it should be destroyed entirely. But you say that they may not have intended that this fate should fall upon you. I think that this is less than possible, for, having heard your arguments, I accept their decision very heartily.”
Saying this I commenced to withdraw the bars, and my companion helped me in silence.