The magistrate looked at the surgeon as if he meant to say, “Just as I expected from what you told me!” Then, turning again to the jailer, he said,—
“Show us to the prisoner’s cell.”
The murderer had been put into a small but tidy cell in the first story. When they entered, they found him seated on his bed, his heels on the bars, and his chin in the palm of his hands. As soon as he saw the surgeon, he jumped up, and with outstretched arms and rolling eyes, exclaimed,—
“The officer has died!”
“No,” replied the surgeon, “no! Calm yourself. The wound is a very bad one; but in a fortnight he will be up again.”
These words fell like a heavy blow upon the murderer. He turned pale; his lips quivered; and he trembled in all his limbs. Still he promptly mastered this weakness of the flesh; and falling on his knees, with folded hands, he murmured in the most dramatic manner,—
“Then I am not a murderer! O Great God, I thank thee!”
And his lips moved as if he were uttering a fervent prayer.
It was evidently a case of coarsest hypocrisy; for his looks contradicted his words and his voice. The magistrate, however, seemed to be taken in.
“You show proper feelings,” he said. “Now get up and answer me. What is your name?”