“Afraid! Any one would be. As for myself, I gave my mule a cut and he was off at a lope, with this fellow coming after as fast as his legs could carry him, until he ran plump into the arms of the civil guard.”
“Yes, yes. You have told all that. But this voice. You heard it plainly?”
“Why, yes, although it sounded as if it came from a distance, or from under a building, or—or—out of a tomb. I couldn’t—I couldn’t help thinking it sounded like a man beneath a floor.”
The attorney twisted his beard again impatiently, coughed, then tightly folded his arms. He was silent for a little. Then, as if surprising himself out of a revery, he commanded, “Well, well. Go on.”
“This voice, señor,” resumed the witness, leaning forward and speaking mysteriously, “it was so hollow and low, and spoke the words so long, like a creature dying and in pain, and it gave me a chill.”
“Are you never to tell us what it said?”
“It moaned, ‘For the sake of the Virgin, of Her Blessed Son, of the Holy Saint Peter, of the Good God, pray for me. Pray for a sinner. Beg the good fathers at Nuevitas to say a mass for the soul of Enrique Carillo.’ Then there was a sort of groan——”
“My God!” It was the prosecutor who had gasped the words.
“Yes, just like that. Ah! Pardon, señor. I did not see. You are ill.”
For the lawyer’s face had become of a deathly pallor, his head had sunk forward, his lips trembled, his hands shook as they clutched the edge of the table behind him. The idlers in the back of the room were awake in a moment. The sun touched the figure of Christ, splashed with blood in the fashion of the official crucifix, and it seemed to look down on the scene below as in torture. The prisoner’s counsel sprang forward, placed a chair for his opponent and helped him to be seated. An officer brought a glass of water, which the lawyer drank eagerly, then sat as in a daze for an instant, shuddered, passed his hands over his face, and said, “I ask the indulgence of the court. I have lost my sleep for the last few nights. I—I——”