Part 126 (1/2)
”A man lying at full length upon the gra.s.s.”
”Asleep?”
”Yes; in the sleep of death.”
”Dead?”
”More than dead; if that were possible. On bending over him, I saw that he had been beheaded!”
”What! His head cut off?”
”Just so. I did not know it, till I knelt down beside him. He was upon his face--with the head in its natural position. Even the hat was still on it!
”I was in hopes he might be asleep; though I had a presentiment there was something amiss. The arms were extended too stiffly for a sleeping man. So were the legs. Besides, there was something red upon the gra.s.s, that in the dim light I had not at first seen.
”As I stooped low to look at it, I perceived a strange odour--the salt smell that proceeds from human blood.
”I no longer doubted that it was a dead body I was bending over; and I set about examining it.
”I saw there was a gash at the back of the neck, filled with red, half-coagulated blood. I saw that the head was severed from the shoulders!”
A sensation of horror runs through the auditory--accompanied by the exclamatory cries heard on such occasions.
”Did you know the man?”
”Alas! yes.”
”Without seeing his face?”
”It did not need that. The dress told who it was--too truly.”
”What dress?”
”The striped blanket covering his shoulders and the hat upon his head.
They were my own. But for the exchange we had made, I might have fancied it was myself. It was Henry Poindexter.”
A groan is again heard--rising above the hum of the excited hearers.
”Proceed, sir!” directs the examining counsel. ”State what other circ.u.mstances came under your observation.”
”On touching the body, I found it cold and stiff. I could see that it had been dead for some length of time. The blood was frozen nearly dry; and had turned black. At least, so it appeared in the grey light: for the sun was not yet up.
”I might have mistaken the cause of death, and supposed it to have been by the _beheading_. But, remembering the shot I had heard in the night, it occurred to me that another wound would be found somewhere--in addition to that made by the knife.
”It proved that I was right. On turning the body breast upward, I perceived a hole in the serape; that all around the place was saturated with blood.
”On lifting it up, and looking underneath, I saw a livid spot just over the breast-bone. I could tell that a bullet had entered there; and as there was no corresponding wound at the back, I knew it must be still inside the body.”
”In your opinion, was the shot sufficient to have caused death, without the mutilation that, you think, must have been done afterwards?”