“Just as I had smoked to the end of my cigar, and was about to take a second out of my case, I heard voices.
There were two of them.
“They were up the river, as I thought on the other side. They were a good way off, in the direction of the town.
“I mightn’t have been able to distinguish them, or tell one from ’tother, if they’d been talking in the ordinary way.
But they weren’t. There was loud angry talk; and I could tell that two men were quarrelling.
“I supposed it was some drunken rowdies, going home from Oberdoffer’s tavern, and I should have thought no more about it.
But as I listened, I recognised one of the voices; and then the other.
The first was my cousin Henry’s—the second that of the man who is there—the man who has murdered him.”
“Please proceed, Mr Calhoun!
Let us hear the whole of the evidence you have promised to produce. It will be time enough then to state your opinions.”
“Well, gentlemen; as you may imagine, I was no little surprised at hearing my cousin’s voice—supposing him asleep in his bed.
So sure was I of its being him, that I didn’t think of going to his room, to see if he was there.
I knew it was his voice; and I was quite as sure that the other was that of the horse-catcher.
“I thought it uncommonly queer, in Henry being out at such a late hour: as he was never much given to that sort of thing.
But out he was. I couldn’t be mistaken about that.
“I listened to catch what the quarrel was about; but though I could distinguish the voices, I couldn’t make out anything that was said on either side.
What I did hear was Henry calling him by some strong names, as if my cousin had been first insulted; and then I heard the Irishman threatening to make him rue it.
Each loudly pronounced the other’s name; and that convinced me about its being them.
“I should have gone out to see what the trouble was; but I was in my slippers; and before I could draw on a pair of boots, it appeared to be all over.
“I waited for half an hour, for Henry to come home.
He didn’t come; but, as I supposed he had gone back to Oberdoffer’s and fallen in with some of the fellows from the Fort, I concluded he might stay there a spell, and I went back to my bed.
“Now, gentlemen, I’ve told you all I know.
My poor cousin never came back to Casa del Corvo—never more laid his side on a bed,—for that we found by going to his room next morning.
His bed that night must have been somewhere upon the prairie, or in the chapparal; and there’s the only man who knows where.”
With a wave of his hand the speaker triumphantly indicated the accused—whose wild straining eyes told how unconscious he was of the terrible accusation, or of the vengeful looks with which, from all sides, he was now regarded.
Calhoun’s story was told with a circumstantiality, that went far to produce conviction of the prisoner’s guilt.
The concluding speech appeared eloquent of truth, and was followed by a clamourous demand for the execution to proceed.
“Hang! hang!” is the cry from fourscore voices.
The judge himself seems to waver.
The minority has been diminished—no longer eighty, out of the hundred, but ninety repeat the cry.
The more moderate are overborne by the inundation of vengeful voices.
The crowd sways to and fro—resembling a storm fast increasing to a tempest. It soon comes to its height.
A ruffian rushes towards the rope.
Though none seem to have noticed it, he has parted from the side of Calhoun—with whom he has been holding a whispered conversation. One of those “border ruffians” of Southern descent, ever ready by the stake of the philanthropist, or the martyr—such as have been late typified in the military murderers of Jamaica, who have disgraced the English name to the limits of all time.
He lays hold of the lazo, and quickly arranges its loop around the neck of the condemned man—alike unconscious of trial and condemnation.
No one steps forward to oppose the act.
The ruffian, bristling with bowie-knife and pistols, has it all to himself or, rather, is he assisted by a scoundrel of the same kidney—one of the ci-devant guards of the prisoner.
The spectators stand aside, or look tranquilly upon the proceedings. Most express a mute approval—some encouraging the executioners with earnest vociferations of
“Up with him!
Hang him!”
A few seem stupefied by surprise; a less number show sympathy; but not one dares to give proof of it, by taking part with the prisoner.
The rope is around his neck—the end with the noose upon it.
The other is being swung over the sycamore.
“Soon must the soul of Maurice Gerald go back to its God!”
Chapter Sixty Four. A Series of Interludes.
“Soon the soul of Maurice Gerald must go back to its God!” It was the thought of every actor in that tragedy among the trees.
No one doubted that, in another moment, they would see his body hoisted into the air, and swinging from the branch of the sycamore.
There was an interlude, not provided for in the programme.
A farce was being performed simultaneously; and, it might be said, on the same stage.
For once the tragedy was more attractive, and the comedy was progressing without spectators.