It is just a week since Nicholas committed the heinous offence of wounding officer Monsel in the arm.  That distinguished personage, having been well cared for, is-to use a common phrase-about again, as fresh as ever.  With Nicholas the case is very different.  His bruised and lacerated body, confined in an unhealthy cell, has received little care.  Suspicion of treachery has been raised against him; his name has become a terror throughout the city; and all his bad qualities have been magnified five-fold, while not a person can be found to say a word in praise of his good.  That he always had some secret villainy in view no one for a moment doubts; that he intended to raise an insurrection among the blacks every one is quite sure; and that confession of all his forelaid evil designs may be extorted from him, the cruellest means have been resorted to.

The day upon which the trial is to take place has arrived.  On the south side of Broad Street there stands a small wooden building, the boarding discoloured and decayed, looking as if it had been accidentally dropped between the walls of two brick buildings standing at its sides.  In addition, it has the appearance of one side having been set at a higher elevation than the other for some purpose of convenience known only to its occupants.  About fifteen feet high, its front possesses a plain door, painted green, two small windows much covered with dust, and a round port-hole over the door.  A sheet of tin, tacked above the door, contains, in broad yellow letters, the significant names of “Fetter and Felsh, Attorneys at Law.”  Again, on a board about the size of a shingle, hanging from a nail at the right side of the door, is “Jabez Fetter, Magistrate.”  By these unmistakeable signs we feel assured of its being the department where the legal firm of Fetter and Felsh do their customers-that is, where they dispose of an immense amount of legal filth for which the state pays very acceptable fees.  Squire Fetter, as he is usually called, is extremely tall and well-formed, and, though straight of person, very crooked in morals.  With an oval and ruddy face, nicely trimmed whiskers, soft blue eyes, tolerably good teeth, he is considered rather a handsome man.  But (to use a vulgar phrase) he is death on night orgies and nigger trials.  He may be seen any day of the week, about twelve o’clock, standing his long figure in the door of his legal domicile, his hat touching the sill, looking up and then down the street, as if waiting the arrival of a victim upon whom to pronounce one of his awful judgments.  Felsh is a different species of person, being a short, stunted man, with a flat, inexpressive face.  He has very much the appearance of a man who had been clumsily thrown together for any purpose future circumstances might require.  Between these worthies and one Hanz Von Vickeinsteighner there has long existed a business connection, which is now being transferred into a fraternity of good fellowship.  Hanz Von