“I should have gone out to see what the trouble was; but I was in my slippers; and before I could draw on a pair of boots, it appeared to be all over.
“I waited for half an hour, for Henry to come home. He didn’t come; but, as I supposed he had gone back to Oberdoffer’s and fallen in with some of the fellows from the Fort, I concluded he might stay there a spell, and I went back to my bed.
“Now, gentlemen, I’ve told you all I know. My poor cousin never came back to Casa del Corvo—never more laid his side on a bed,—for that we found by going to his room next morning. His bed that night must have been somewhere upon the prairie, or in the chapparal; and there’s the only man who knows where.”
With a wave of his hand the speaker triumphantly indicated the accused—whose wild straining eyes told how unconscious he was of the terrible accusation, or of the vengeful looks with which, from all sides, he was now regarded.
Calhoun’s story was told with a circumstantiality, that went far to produce conviction of the prisoner’s guilt. The concluding speech appeared eloquent of truth, and was followed by a clamourous demand for the execution to proceed.
“Hang! hang!” is the cry from fourscore voices.
The judge himself seems to waver. The minority has been diminished—no longer eighty, out of the hundred, but ninety repeat the cry. The more moderate are overborne by the inundation of vengeful voices.
The crowd sways to and fro—resembling a storm fast increasing to a tempest.
It soon comes to its height. A ruffian rushes towards the rope. Though none seem to have noticed it, he has parted from the side of Calhoun—with whom he has been holding a whispered conversation. One of those “border ruffians” of Southern descent, ever ready by the stake of the philanthropist, or the martyr—such as have been late typified in the military murderers of Jamaica, who have disgraced the English name to the limits of all time.
He lays hold of the lazo, and quickly arranges its loop around the neck of the condemned man—alike unconscious of trial and condemnation.