Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Two.
A Double Murder.
None of the three started or felt surprise. That had been gradually passing: for before this their presentiment had become almost a conviction.
Quaco simply uttered one of those exclamations that proclaim a climax; Cubina felt chagrined—disappointed in more ways than one; while Herbert gave way to grief—though less than he might have done, had his relative more deserved his sorrow.
It was natural they should inquire into the circumstances of the Custos’s death. Now, firmly believing he had been murdered, and by the caçadores, they proceeded to make an examination of the body.
Mystery of mysteries! a dozen stabs by some sharp instrument, and no blood! Wounds through the breast, the abdomen, the heart—all clean cut punctures, and yet no gore—no extravasation!
“Who gave the stabs? you did this, you wretches!” cried Herbert, turning fiercely upon the employés of Jessuron.
“Carrambo! why should we do such a thing, master?” innocently inquired Andres. “The alcalde was dead before we came up.”
“Spanish palaver!” cried Quaco. “Look at these blades!” he continued, taking up the two machetés, “they’re wet now! ’Ta’nt blood azzactly; but somethin’—. See,” he exclaimed, holding his cocuyo over the wounds, and presenting one of the machetés to the light, “they fit to these holes like a cork to a bottle. ’Twere they that made em, nothin’ but they, an’ you did it, ye ugly skinks!”
“By the Virgin, Señor Quaco!” replied Andres, “you wrong us. I’ll swear on the holy evangelists, we didn’t kill the alcalde—Custos, I mean. Carrambo! no. We were as much surprised as any of you, when we came in here and found him lying dead—just as he is now.”