"All as true as the Gospel of St. Mark; and that is the man, the very man; under the oath of God, I swear it!"
During this brief but terribly pointed dialogue, Gaut Gurley,—whose handcuffs, on his complaint that they galled his wrists, had been removed after he came into court,—sat watching Phillips with that same singularly sinister expression which we have, on one or two previous occasions, tried to describe him as exhibiting. It was a certain indescribable, whitish, lurid light, flashing and quivering over his countenance, that made the beholder involuntarily recoil. And, as the last words were uttered, his hand was seen covertly stealing up under the lapel of his coat; but it was instantly arrested and dropped, at the sharp click of the cocking of the hunter's rifle, which was also seen stealing up to his shoulder.
"Nonsense!" half audibly said the sheriff, to something which, during the bustle and sensation following these manifestations, the hunter had been whispering in his ear; "nonsense! I searched him myself, and know there is nothing of the kind about him."
"I am not so sure about that," responded the hunter, edging along through the crowd, with his eye still on the prisoner, and soon disappearing out of the door.
This little judicial interlude in the remarks of the attorney being over, he resumed:
"My statement having been thus corroborated, and, as I am most happy to find, without any of the expected interruptions, it now only remains for me to say, that this indefatigable Mr. Phillips, becoming perfectly convinced that the prisoner was a man of whom it was a patriotic duty to rid the settlement, has, within the last two months, made a journey into Canada; obtained a written official request from the governor-general, addressed to the governor of New Hampshire, for the delivery of Gaut Gurley, at the time when, on notice, the proper officers would be in waiting to receive him; that our governor has responded by issuing his warrant; which," he continued, drawing out a document, "I now, in this presence, deliver to the sheriff, to be served, but only served, in case we fail—as I do not at all anticipate—to secure the commitment and final conviction of the prisoner, on the flagitious offence now under investigation, and loudly demanding expiation under our own violated laws, in preference to delivering him up for the punishment of other and less crying felonies."
The prisoner and his counsel, on this new and unexpected development, held an earnest whispered consultation. The latter had supposed, till almost the last moment, that his opponent was intending only to bring in another piece of what he deemed wholly irrelevant testimony, in the shape of another gone-by transaction; and he was preparing another storm of wrath for the judicial outrage. But, when he found that the statement was a preliminary to a different and more alarming movement, and especially when he saw placed in the sheriff's hands a warrant for delivering up his client to the British, to be tried for a former felony, from the punishment of which, he feared, from what he had just heard, there would be no escape, he was sadly nonplussed, and knew not which way to turn himself. And it was not until Gaut, who, though thus suddenly brought into a dilemma which he was little expecting, was yet at no loss to decide on his course,—that of making every possible effort to escape the more immediate pending danger, and then of trusting to chance for eluding the more remote one just brought to view,—it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the last being but a miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and goaded him up to action, that the dumbfounded attorney recovered his old confidence. He then straightened back in his seat, and, with the air of one who has meekly borne some imposition, or breach of privilege, till it can be borne no longer, turned gruffly to his opponent, and said:
"Well, sir, having dragged every thing into this case except what legitimately belongs to it, I want to know if you are through, now? We, on our side, have no need of introducing testimony to meet any thing you have yet been able to show. Why, you have not even established the first essential fact to be settled in prosecutions for homicide. You have arraigned my client for killing a man, and yet have shown nobody killed! No, we shall introduce no witnesses till the body of the alleged murdered man is produced; for, till then, no court on earth—But I am not making a speech, and will not anticipate. All I intended was, to ask, as I do again, are you through with your evidence now?"
The attorney for the prosecution then admitted—rather prematurely, as it was soon seen—that he thought of nothing more which he wished to introduce.
"Go on with your opening speech, then," resumed the former.