“You know the old hacienda has a flat roof, I suppose? Well, I went up there to get cool; and continued to pull away at the weed.
“It must have been then about midnight, or maybe a little earlier. I can’t tell: for I’d been tossing about on my bed, and took no note of the time.
“Just as I had smoked to the end of my cigar, and was about to take a second out of my case, I heard voices. There were two of them.
“They were up the river, as I thought on the other side. They were a good way off, in the direction of the town.
“I mightn’t have been able to distinguish them, or tell one from ’tother, if they’d been talking in the ordinary way. But they weren’t. There was loud angry talk; and I could tell that two men were quarrelling.
“I supposed it was some drunken rowdies, going home from Oberdoffer’s tavern, and I should have thought no more about it. But as I listened, I recognised one of the voices; and then the other. The first was my cousin Henry’s—the second that of the man who is there—the man who has murdered him.”
“Please proceed, Mr Calhoun! Let us hear the whole of the evidence you have promised to produce. It will be time enough then to state your opinions.”
“Well, gentlemen; as you may imagine, I was no little surprised at hearing my cousin’s voice—supposing him asleep in his bed. So sure was I of its being him, that I didn’t think of going to his room, to see if he was there. I knew it was his voice; and I was quite as sure that the other was that of the horse-catcher.
“I thought it uncommonly queer, in Henry being out at such a late hour: as he was never much given to that sort of thing. But out he was. I couldn’t be mistaken about that.
“I listened to catch what the quarrel was about; but though I could distinguish the voices, I couldn’t make out anything that was said on either side. What I did hear was Henry calling him by some strong names, as if my cousin had been first insulted; and then I heard the Irishman threatening to make him rue it. Each loudly pronounced the other’s name; and that convinced me about its being them.