“Well, then, as I was saying, there’s been evidence enough—and more than enough, in my opinion. But if you want more, I can give it.”
“Give it—give it!” cry a score of responding voices; that keep up the demand, while Calhoun seems to hesitate.
“Gentlemen!” says he, squaring himself to the crowd, as if for a speech, “what I’ve got to say now I could have told you long ago. But I didn’t think it was needed. You all know what’s happened between this man and myself; and I had no wish to be thought revengeful. I’m not; and if it wasn’t that I’m sure he has done the deed—sure as the head’s on my body—”
Calhoun speaks stammeringly, seeing that the phrase, involuntarily escaping from his lips, has produced a strange effect upon his auditory—as it has upon himself.
“If not sure—I—I should still say nothing of what I’ve seen, or rather heard: for it was in the night, and I saw nothing.”
“What did you hear, Mr Calhoun?” demands the Regulator Chief, resuming his judicial demeanour, for a time forgotten in the confusion of voting the verdict. “Your quarrel with the prisoner, of which I believe everybody has heard, can have nothing to do with your testimony here. Nobody’s going to accuse you of false swearing on that account. Please proceed, sir. What did you hear? And where, and when, did you hear it?”
“To begin, then, with the time. It was the night my cousin was missing; though, of course, we didn’t miss him till the morning. Last Tuesday night.”
“Tuesday night. Well?”
“I’d turned in myself; and thought Henry had done the same. But what with the heat, and the infernal musquitoes, I couldn’t get any sleep.
“I started up again; lit a cigar; and, after smoking it awhile in the room, I thought of taking a turn upon the top of the house.