“I had sent my servant before, and intended to follow in the morning; but what happened at Casa del Corvo made me desirous of getting away as soon as possible; and I started off, after settling my account with Mr Oberdoffer.”
“And the money with which you paid him?” asks the State prosecutor, “where did you get—?”
“I protest against this!” interrupts the counsel for the accused.
“Bedarrah!” exclaims the Milesian lawyer, looking daggers, or rather duelling pistols, at the State counsellor; “if yez were to go on at that rate in a Galway assize, ye’d stand a nate chance of gettin’ conthradicted in a different style altogether!”
“Silence, gentlemen!” commands the judge, in an authoritative tone. “Let the accused continue his statement.”
“I travelled slowly. There was no reason for being in a hurry. I was in no mood for going to sleep that night; and it mattered little to me where I should spend it—on the prairie, or under the roof of my jacalé. I knew I could reach the Alamo before daybreak; and that would be as soon as I desired.
“I never thought of looking behind me. I had no suspicion that any one was coming after; until I had got about half a mile into the chapparal—where the Rio Grande trace runs through it.
“Then I heard the stroke of a horse’s hoof, that appeared hurrying up behind.
“I had got round the corner—where the trace makes a sharp turn—and was hindered from seeing the horseman. But I could tell that he was coming on at a trot.
“It might be somebody I wouldn’t care to encounter?