XXX. — STABBED “NOT MURDERED.”
“Well,” Darke continued, “I have told you my design, and now I will inform you how I carried it out.
“I saw Mr. George Conway receive the money—in notes, bank notes, and gold. That was enough; I knew the road he would take; and going to the stable of the tavern I saddled my horse, and rode out of the place in a western direction. When I was out of sight, however, I turned eastward toward Five Forks, pushed into the woods, and about sunset took my stand in a piece of timber, on the side of the road which—he—was coming by.”
There was always a marked hesitation when he came to the name of his victim. He went on more rapidly now.
“Well, he came along about dusk. Some one followed him, but I could not make out who. Another man came on from the direction of Petersburg; passed me and him; and the other who had followed him out of the court-house turned into a by-road and disappeared. Then I saw that the game was in my own hands; I waited, looking at him as he approached me. I swear I did not intend to harm him. I was half-drunk, but I remember what I intended. He came on. I rode toward him, demanded the money, he refused. I threw myself on him, as he struck at me with the butt of his heavy riding-whip, then we both rolled to the ground, I under! His clutch was on my throat, I was choking. ‘Help,’ he cried, and I came near crying it, too! All at once my hand fell upon my pocket, I felt the knife, I drew it out, opened it, and stabbed him as he was strangling me!
“That was the whole! Do you call it a murder? I rose up, as he fell back. His breast was all bloody; his eyes turned round; he gasped something, and fell back dead.”
The speaker paused and wiped his brow with his huge, muscular hand. His face was a strange spectacle. The most bitter and terrible emotions of the human heart were written there as with a pen of fire.
“Then I looked at him;” he went on, “I said to myself, ‘this is a murder,’ foolishly, for he was stabbed, not murdered; and my first thought was to conceal the body. I dragged it to the roadside, hid it in some bushes, and thinking I heard some one coming, leaped on my horse, who had stood by quietly—his had galloped away—and left the cursed spot as fast as I could go. The money was left on him. I swear I did not touch a penny of it, and would not have touched it, even if I had not been interrupted. I had not intended to kill him. It was the result of the struggle. I took nothing of his away from that place, but I left something of my own; the knife with which I had struck him!
“The devil had put the cursed thing into my hand; and now the devil made me drop it there, within ten feet of the dead body.”