'On Sunday night—the night he was killed?'
'Yes, pretty one. The Gorgio was to give him money for somethin' he knowed.'
'Who was the Gorgio?'
'I don' know, lovey! I don' know!'
'What was the secret, then?' asked Baltic, casting round for information.
'Bless 'ee, my tiny! Jentham nivir tole me. An' I was curis to know, my dove, so when he walks away half-seas over I goes too. I follows, lovey, I follow, but I nivir did cotch him up, fur rain and storm comed mos' dreful.'
'Did you not see him on that night, then?'
'Sight of my eyes, I sawr 'im dead. I 'eard a shot, and I run, and run, dearie, fur I know'd as 'e 'ad no pistol; but I los' m'way, my royal rye, and it was ony when th' storm rolled off as I foun' 'im. He was lyin' in a ditch. Such was his grave,' continued Mother Jael, speaking in her own tongue, 'water and grass and storm-clouds above, brother. I was afraid to touch him, afraid to wait, as these Gentiles might think I had slain the man. I got back into the road, I did, and there I picked up this, which I brought to the camp with me. But I never showed it to the police, brother, for I feared the Gentile jails.'
This proved to be a neat little silver-mounted pistol which Mother Jael fished out from the interior of the mattress. Baltic balanced it in his hand, and believing, as was surely natural, that Jentham had been killed with this weapon, he examined it carefully.
'G. P.,' said he, reading the initials graven on the silver shield of the butt.