"Yes. I was taken advantage of for once in my life. A cunning woman, that Dido. She got permission to see me in prison, and to talk to me alone, under the pretense of telling me about her evidence. Knowing that I could compel her to do what I wished by means of the Voodoo stone, I saw her with pleasure, as it was my intention to put the words likely to get me off--to prove my innocence--into her mouth. However, while I was talking to her, she suddenly produced a phial of the devil-stick poison and threw it in my face. Of course, I instantly became unconscious, and it was then that she wrenched the talisman off my watch-chain."
"Is the poison so quick in its effects then?"
"I should think so," said Etwald, coldly. "You saw how David fell in court, after wounding his hand. I fell in prison quite as quickly, but as my skin was not scratched, and the drug took effect only through the nostrils, I recovered."
"And when you recovered?"
"The jailer told me that Dido had called him in, saying that I had fainted. While they were getting me round--which took an hour--Dido went off with the Voodoo stone. Those about the prison had no reason to detain her, so she left. When I found the Voodoo stone gone," added Etwald, impressively. "I knew that the black wretch would give evidence against me, and that the game was at an end."
"You expected to be hanged?" suggested Jen.
"Well, no!" replied the doctor, with wonderful coolness, "I did not expect that. If the worst came to the worst, I knew that I could protect myself; but I must admit that the confession of my counsel, Mr. Sarby, took me somewhat by surprise."
"Poor David!" sighed Jen, thinking of the young man cut off in the bloom of his youth.
"Poor David!" echoed Etwald, with a sneer. "Foolish David, you might say, to die for the sake of a woman."
"Yet you risked death for the same woman."