He conducted Gabriel Carew to a spot, and pointed downwards with his finger; and there, prone and still upon the fallen leaves, lay the body of Eric stone dead, stabbed to the heart!
"Martin Hartog," said the priest, "is in custody on suspicion of this ruthless murder."
"Why?" asked Gabriel Carew. "What evidence is there to incriminate him?"
"When the body was first discovered," said the priest, "your gardener was standing by its side. Upon being questioned his answer was, 'If judgment has not fallen upon the monster, it has overtaken his brother. The brood should be wiped off the face of the earth.' He spoke no further word."
[VI.]
Gabriel Carew was overwhelmed by the horror of this discovery. The meeting between the brothers, of which he had been a secret witness on the previous evening, and during which Eric had laid violent hands on Emilius, recurred to him. He had not spoken of it, nor did he mention it now. There was time enough. If Martin Hartog confessed his guilt the matter was settled; if he did not, the criminal must be sought elsewhere, and it would be his duty to supply evidence which would tend to fix the crime upon Emilius. He did not believe Martin Hartog to be guilty; he had already decided within himself that Emilius had murdered Eric, and that the tragedy of Kristel and Silvain had been repeated in the lives of Silvain's sons. There was a kind of retribution in this which struck Gabriel Carew with singular force. "Useless," he thought, "to fly from a fate which is preordained. When he recovered from the horror which had fallen on him upon beholding the body of Eric, he asked Father Daniel at what hour of the day the unhappy man had been killed.
"That," said Father Daniel, "has yet to be determined. No doctor has seen the body, but the presumption is that when Martin Hartog, animated by his burning craving for vengeance, of which we were both a witness, rushed from his cottage, he made his way to the woods, and that he here unhappily met the brother of the man whom he believed to be the betrayer of his daughter. What followed may be easily imagined."
The arrival of the magistrate put a stop to the conversation. He listened to what Father Daniel had to relate, and some portions of the priest's explanations were corroborated by Gabriel Carew. The magistrate then gave directions that the body of Eric should be conveyed to the courthouse; and he and the priest and Carew walked back to the village together.
"The village will become notorious," he remarked. "Is there an epidemic of murder amongst us that this one should follow so closely upon the heels of the other?" Then, after a pause, he asked Father Daniel whether he believed Martin Hartog to be guilty.
"I believe no man to be guilty," said the priest, "until he is proved so incontrovertibly. Human justice frequently errs."