For all he neither says nor does aught to tell of his being thus attentive to the stranger—at first his guest, but now a spendthrift host to himself and his party.
While the champagne is being freely quaffed, of course there is much conversation, and on many subjects. But one is special; seeming more than all others to engross the attention of the roysterers under the roof of the Choctaw Chief.
It is a murder that has been committed in the State of Mississippi, near the town of Natchez; an account of which has just appeared in the local journal of Natchitoches. The paper is lying on the bar-room table; and all of them, who can read, have already made themselves acquainted with the particulars of the crime. Those, whose scholarship does not extend so far, have learnt them at secondhand from their better-educated associates.
The murdered man is called Clancy—Charles Clancy—while the murderer, or he under suspicion of being so, is named Richard Darke, the son of Ephraim Darke, a rich Mississippi planter.
The paper gives further details: that the body of the murdered man has not been found, before the time of its going to press; though the evidence collected leaves no doubt of a foul deed having been done; adding, that Darke, the man accused of it, after being arrested and lodged in the county jail, has managed to make his escape—this through connivance with his jailer, who has also disappeared from the place. Just in time, pursues the report, to save the culprit’s neck from a rope, made ready for him by the executioners of Justice Lynch, a party of whom had burst open the doors of the prison, only to find it untenanted. The paper likewise mentions the motive for the committal of the crime—at least as conjectured; giving the name of a young lady, Miss Helen Armstrong, and speaking of a letter, with her picture, found upon the suspected assassin. It winds up by saying, that no doubt both prisoner and jailer have G.T.T.—“Gone to Texas”—a phrase of frequent use in the Southern States, applied to fugitives from justice. Then follows the copy of a proclamation from the State authorities, offering a reward of two thousand dollars for the apprehension of Richard Darke, and five hundred for Joe Harkness—this being the name of the conniving prison-keeper.
While the murder is being canvassed and discussed by the bon-vivants in the bar-room of the Choctaw Chief—a subject that seems to have a strange fascination for them—Borlasse, who has become elevated with the alcohol, though usually a man of taciturn habit, breaks out with an asseveration, which causes surprise to all, even his intimate associates.
“Damn the luck!” he vociferates, bringing his fist down upon the counter till the decanters dance at the concussion; “I’d ’a given a hundred dollars to ’a been in the place o’ that fellow Darke, whoever he is!”
“Why?” interrogate several of his confrères, in tones that express the different degrees of their familiarity with him questioned, “Why, Jim?”
“Why, Mr Borlasse?”
“Why, Captain?”