CHAPTER 15. THE COURT OF TRUTH.

February 15, 1851.

“Minkins!”—this was the word, this was the leitmotif that guided every movement, every breath of the group of twenty African Americans who, at this very hour, desired nothing more than to successfully free this man from the courtroom. Lewis Hayden—the leader of this group—was now as determined as ever: his determination was supported by confidence in his own beliefs, in his own righteousness, and in objective justice. Or was he so determined because one of his loyal men was in the courtroom at that very moment? The truth of this assumption was supported, first of all, by the very note that was found a little later—after the successful completion of Lewis Hayden's undertaking—by an officer on the body of one of the limited number of benches in that hall:

Brief maxims before the verse:

“Are we judging them now? We are now judging a slave, when we should be judging a pirate!”

“Dedicated to all the pirates who are now—but for how long?—alive and well!”

“THE TRIAL OF THE PIRATE”

“… - Mad Ared, the pirate chief,

Before the court by right,

Your angular face appeared,

Which once scared all with a cannonball,

From a gloomy essence of cast iron,

Which was forged, according to the words

Of this Hun's thugs,

In hidden furnaces, like azram,

In the mountains or in a dense thicket:

But does it matter where and how,

The means for murder was created,

For fires, robberies, and fights?

Having a chance to help the people—

Those by whom you were created, and others,

Who their freedom,

Cherish like the wings of cherubim—

You chose the path of war, of instinct,

For which you became persecuted:

In the deserted darkness of the labyrinth,

You created your Jerusalem,

Proclaiming yourself the Messiah,

Of long-desperate people,

Who bowed before the power,

Of Mephistophelean passions.

Your bloody transgressions,

Shaded by “goodness,”

Will serve as a clear revelation,

For those who after us, later,

Will lift the same burden on their shoulders,

That was there before and up to—

To fill the cavity of time with yourself,

Like a scarlet-faced Bordeaux,

Fills a pithos with itself.

Weather-beaten Ared! New Tartuffe!

He now greedily breathes life in,

Through a raven's—not an eagle's—beak!

Naive! You crave forgiveness,

You want what you cannot get—

You have sent too much torment,

To feel blood in your bodies:

Henceforth, your life is a cigar,

Or rather, a caustic, gray smoke,

Which with a heavy step of stupor,

Harms all those who are before it—

It smolders in a languid expiration:

In eyes colorless as opal,

A memory languishes subtly,

Lustful, like Sardanapalus,

Eloquent on the quarterdeck,

In Beauchamp's position No. 2,

To the pirates, having lifted heavy eyelids,

You insisted that war,

Against countries is necessary,

To preserve themselves;

That “Ruse” is invincible,

As was the name of the ship;

You told that many dream,

To tie their fate,

With this vessel that brings ruin—

Just, just to escape from here,

Many wanted,

To save their lives and faith in the day,

The current one. How many hoped,

For a quiet, blessed deathbed!

Having grown the cult of the tyrant's personality,

On this dormant crowd,

You forgot what you zealously,

Under the newly rising moon,

Insisted on the deck once,

Still not having changed your calling,

As a simple, gray pirate,

That slavery is worse than divas,

And tyranny is worse than slavery…