Hearing the name, crowds pressed forward, recognising Bartle Sullivan, and testifying their recognition by a general cheer.
There were two persons present, however, Condy Dalton and the Prophet, on whom Sullivan's appearance produced very opposite effects.
Old Dalton at first imagined himself in a dream, and it was only when Sullivan, promising to explain all, came over and shook hands with him, and asked his pardon, that the old man understood he was innocent.
The Prophet looked with mortification rather than wonder at Sullivan; then a shadow settled on his countenance, and he muttered to himself, "I am doomed! Something drove me to this."
The trial was quickly ended. Sullivan's brother and several jurors established his identity, and Condy Dalton was discharged.
The judge then ordered the Prophet and Roddy Duncan to be taken into custody, and an indictment of perjury to be prepared at once. The graver charge of murder was, however, brought against M'Gowan, the murder of a carman named Peter Magennis, and the following day he found himself in the very dock where Dalton had stood.
V.--Fate: the Discoverer
The trial of Donnel M'Gowan brought several strange things to light. It was proved that the Prophet's real name was McIvor, that he had a wife living, and that this wife was a sister to the murdered carman, Peter Magennis. After the murder, McIvor fled to America with his daughter, and his wife lost sight of him. She had only returned to these parts recently, and she identified the skeleton of her brother because of a certain malformation of the foot.
Then a pedlar, known in the neighbourhood as Toddy Mack, deposed that he had given Magennis a steel tobacco-box with the letters "P. M." punched on it.
It was Roddy Duncan who had seen this tobacco-box put under the thatch, and he, knowing nothing of its history, had given it to Sarah M'Gowan, who equally ignorant, had given it to a young man who called himself Hanlon, but was in fact the son of Magennis.