"So sudden a death!" he said, in a voice broken by tears. "No time for repentance! Thrust before the Eternal Presence weighed down by sin! I have been praying by his side for mercy, and for mercy upon his murderer. Poor sinners! poor sinners!"
I could not sympathise with his sentiments, and I told him so sternly. He made no attempt to convert me to his views, but simply said, "All men should pray that they may never be tempted."
And so he left me, and turned in the direction of his little chapel to offer up prayers for the dead and the living sinners.
Doctor Louis was with the magistrate; they had been discussing theories, and had heard from the landlord of the Three Black Crows my own ideas of the movements of the strangers on the previous night.
"In certain respects you may be right in your speculations," the magistrate said; "but on one important point you are in error."
"I have already discovered," I said, "that my theory is wrong, and not in accordance with fact; but we will speak of that presently. What is the point you refer to?"
"As to the weapon with which the murder was done," replied the magistrate, a shrewd man, whose judicial perceptions fitted him for a larger sphere of duties than he was called upon to perform in Nerac. "No knife was used."
"What, then, was the weapon?" I asked.
"A club of some sort," said the magistrate, "with which the dead man was suddenly attacked from behind."
"Has it been found?"