“Lor, Massr George? doant you see um ober yonder—Spence an’ William—golly! tha’r boaf as white as peeled pumpkins! It war them that shot you, an’ no Indians, arter all. I knowd dat from tha fust, an’ I tol’ Mass’ Hickman de same; but Mass’ Hickman ’clare he see um for hisself—an’ so too Mass’ Weatherford—boaf seed ’um fire tha two shots. Thar a tryin’ ’on ’em for tha lives, dat’s what tha men am doin’.”
With strange interest I once more turned my eyes outward, and gazed, first at one group, then the other. The fire was now making less noise—the sapwood having nearly burnt out—and the detonations caused by the escape of the pent gases from the cellular cavities of the wood had grown less frequent. Voices could be heard over the glade, those of the improvised jury.
I listened attentively. I perceived that a dispute was still raging between them. They were not agreed upon their verdict—some advocating the immediate death of the prisoners; while others, adverse to such prompt punishment, would have kept them for further inquiry.
There were some who could not credit their guilt—the deed was too atrocious, and hence improbable; under what motive could they have committed it? At such a time, too, with their own lives in direst jeopardy?
“Ne’er a bit o’ jeppurdy,” exclaimed Hickman in reply to the interrogatory, “ne’er a bit o’ jeppurdy. Thar haint been a shot fired at eyther on ’em this hul day. I tell ye, fellers, thar’s a un’erstannin’ ’atween them an’ the Indyens. Thar no better’n spies, an’ thar last night’s work proves it; an’ but for the breakin’ out of the fire, which they didn’t expect, they’d been off arter firin’ the shots. ’Twar all bamfoozle about thar gettin’ lost—them fellers git lost, adeed! Both on ’em knows these hyar wuds as well as the anymals thet lives in ’em. Thum both been hyar many’s the time, an’ a wheen too often, I reckin. Lost! wagh! Did yez iver hear o’ a coon gittin’ lost?” Some one made reply, I did not hear what was said, but the voice of the hunter again sounded distinct and clear.
“Ye palaver about thar motive—I s’pose you mean thar reezuns for sech bloody bizness! Them, I acknullidge, aint clar, but I hev my sespicions too. I aint a gwine to say who or what. Thar’s some things as mout be, an’ thar’s some as moutn’t; but I’ve seed queer doin’s in these last five yeern, an’ I’ve heern o’ others; an if what I’ve heern be’s true—what I’ve seed I know to be—then I tell ye, fellers, thar’s a bigger than eyther o’ thesen at the bottom o’ the hul bizness—that’s what thar be.”
“But do you really say you saw them take aim in that direction; are you sure of that?”
This inquiry was put by a tall man who stood in the midst of the disputing party—a man of advanced age, and of somewhat severe aspect. I knew him as one of our neighbours in the settlement—an extensive planter—who had some intercourse with my uncle, and out of friendship for our family had joined the pursuit.
“Sure,” echoed the old hunter with emphasis, and not without some show of indignation; “didn’t me an’ Jim Weatherford see ’em wi’ our own two eyes? an’ thar good enough, I reckin, to mark sich varmints as them. We’d been a watchin’ ’em all day, for we knowd thar war somethin’ ugly afoot. We seed ’em both fire acrost the gleed—an’ sight plum-centre at young Randolph; besides, the black himself sez that the two shots comed that away. What more proof kin you want?”
At this moment I heard a voice by my side. It was that of Jake, calling out to the crowd.