Then, hanging the strange bundle over the horn of his saddle, he remounted his mare, and rode reflectingly away.
Chapter Eighty Three.
Limbs of the Law.
On the third day after Maurice Gerald became an inmate of the military prison the fever had forsaken him, and he no longer talked incoherently. On the fourth he was almost restored to his health and strength. The fifth was appointed for his trial!
This haste—that elsewhere would have been considered indecent—was thought nothing of in Texas; where a man may commit a capital offence, be tried, and hanged within the short space of four-and-twenty hours!
His enemies, who were numerous, for some reason of their own, insisted upon despatch: while his friends, who were few, could urge no good reason against it.
Among the populace there was the usual clamouring for prompt and speedy justice; fortified by that exciting phrase, old as the creation itself: “that the blood of the murdered man was calling from the ground for vengeance.”
The advocates of an early trial were favoured by a fortuitous circumstance. The judge of the Supreme Court chanced just then to be going his circuit; and the days devoted to clearing the calendar at Fort Inge, had been appointed for that very week.