“Not s’ fast, Hank.” Hickey swung the lantern perilously.
“There’sh a judge, thash me; an’ there’sh jury, thash gotter be you fellers. There—now. Thash all fixed.”
Oh, God! Was it really to end in this tragic farce? Gard pondered it with a sick heart. If it was, why could he not have died in the storm, with Arnold, two years ago?
He realized the futility of any appeal to the creatures before him. They were drunk; irresponsible as dogs at play, and they held his life in their hands. His life: with all its new hope, and love, and aspiration! Moreover, three of them hated him. He owed even these few more moments of breath to the maudlin vagary of the one who did not know him.
“Prish’ner at the bar,” Hickey was mumbling, “You are accusht o’ bein’ convicted o’ the murder o’—Who ’n hell was it he murdered, Broome?”
He turned to Broome with an effort at dignity that nearly flung the lantern in the latter’s face. Broome dodged it, with an oath.
“Dan Lundy, you slitherin’ fool,” he snarled, “Git ahead with your lingo, or we’ll swing you when he’s done fer.”
Hickey ignored the threat.
“Well, prish’ner at the bar, guilty er not guilty?”
“Not guilty! I never touched Lundy,” Gard said, earnestly. “I found him dead in his shack, and they came in just as I was trying to lift him up.”