There was always a marked hesitation when he came to the name of his victim. He went on more rapidly now.
“Well, he came along about dusk. Some one followed him, but I could not make out who. Another man came on from the direction of Petersburg; passed me and him; and the other who had followed him out of the court-house turned into a by-road and disappeared. Then I saw that the game was in my own hands; I waited, looking at him as he approached me. I swear I did not intend to harm him. I was half-drunk, but I remember what I intended. He came on. I rode toward him, demanded the money, he refused. I threw myself on him, as he struck at me with the butt of his heavy riding-whip, then we both rolled to the ground, I under! His clutch was on my throat, I was choking. ‘Help,’ he cried, and I came near crying it, too! All at once my hand fell upon my pocket, I felt the knife, I drew it out, opened it, and stabbed him as he was strangling me!
“That was the whole! Do you call it a murder? I rose up, as he fell back. His breast was all bloody; his eyes turned round; he gasped something, and fell back dead.”
The speaker paused and wiped his brow with his huge, muscular hand. His face was a strange spectacle. The most bitter and terrible emotions of the human heart were written there as with a pen of fire.
“Then I looked at him;” he went on, “I said to myself, ‘this is a murder,’ foolishly, for he was stabbed, not murdered; and my first thought was to conceal the body. I dragged it to the roadside, hid it in some bushes, and thinking I heard some one coming, leaped on my horse, who had stood by quietly—his had galloped away—and left the cursed spot as fast as I could go. The money was left on him. I swear I did not touch a penny of it, and would not have touched it, even if I had not been interrupted. I had not intended to kill him. It was the result of the struggle. I took nothing of his away from that place, but I left something of my own; the knife with which I had struck him!
“The devil had put the cursed thing into my hand; and now the devil made me drop it there, within ten feet of the dead body.”
XXXI. — THE TWO PAPERS.
Darke had spoken in a low, dull, gloomy voice; and something like a shudder had passed through his frame as he painted, in brief words, the sombre scene. This emotion now seemed even to grow deeper. Was there good left in this wild animal?