Part 88 (2/2)
”Cyan _you_ give them, Misther Cas.h.i.+us Calhoun?” inquires a voice from the outside circle, with a strong Irish accent.
”Perhaps I can.”
”Let's have them, then!”
”G.o.d knows you've had evidence enough. A jury of his own stupid countrymen--”
”Bar that appellashun!” shouts the man, who has demanded the additional evidence. ”Just remember, Misther Calhoun, ye're in Texas, and not Mississippi. Bear that in mind; or ye may run your tongue into trouble, sharp as it is.”
”I don't mean to offend any one,” says Calhoun, backing out of the dilemma into which his Irish antipathies had led him; ”even an Englishman, if there's one here.”
”Thare ye're welcome--go on!” cries the mollified Milesian.
”Well, then, as I was saying, there's been evidence enough--and more than enough, in my opinion. But if you want more, I can give it.”
”Give it--give it!” cry a score of responding voices; that keep up the demand, while Calhoun seems to hesitate.
”Gentlemen!” says he, squaring himself to the crowd, as if for a speech, ”what I've got to say now I could have told you long ago. But I didn't think it was needed. You all know what's happened between this man and myself; and I had no wish to be thought revengeful. I'm not; and if it wasn't that I'm sure he has done the deed--sure as the head's on my body--”
Calhoun speaks stammeringly, seeing that the phrase, involuntarily escaping from his lips, has produced a strange effect upon his auditory--as it has upon himself.
”If not sure--I--I should still say nothing of what I've seen, or rather heard: for it was in the night, and I saw nothing.”
”What did you hear, Mr Calhoun?” demands the Regulator Chief, resuming his judicial demeanour, for a time forgotten in the confusion of voting the verdict. ”Your quarrel with the prisoner, of which I believe everybody has heard, can have nothing to do with your testimony here.
n.o.body's going to accuse you of false swearing on that account. Please proceed, sir. What did you hear? And where, and when, did you hear it?”
”To begin, then, with the time. It was the night my cousin was missing; though, of course, we didn't miss him till the morning. Last Tuesday night.”
”Tuesday night. Well?”
”I'd turned in myself; and thought Henry had done the same. But what with the heat, and the infernal musquitoes, I couldn't get any sleep.
”I started up again; lit a cigar; and, after smoking it awhile in the room, I thought of taking a turn upon the top of the house.
”You know the old hacienda has a flat roof, I suppose? Well, I went up there to get cool; and continued to pull away at the weed.
”It must have been then about midnight, or maybe a little earlier. I can't tell: for I'd been tossing about on my bed, and took no note of the time.
”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.”
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