"Yes, sir. Very slowly, however, as there was very little wind."
"From your knowledge of his condition at that time, do you believe it would have been possible for him to have returned that night to Mr. Van Deust's, entered that house, perpetrated the murder with which he is charged and made his escape?"
"No, sir. He was very weak from loss of blood, and I know, from personal examination, that his ankle was so severely sprained that it would have been a physical impossibility for him to have done what you said."
"Ah! you say that you examined his ankle. Did you notice at the time what kind of shoes he wore?"
"I did. He had on the low, broad, soft shoes, with hardly any heels, which sailors customarily wear."
"That is enough, sir. Thank you. Take the witness," said Mr. Dunn, with an air of triumph, to the prosecuting attorney.
That official did not seem to care about taking the witness. He knew that it was a master in the art of cross-examination who was thus lightly turned over to him, and had no hope of entrapping him or shaking his testimony. Still, he had to make some show.
Indifferently he asked: "Of course you have no idea of who the old man in the boat was?"
"To the best of my information and belief, his name was Jabez Sanborn. I asked him and that was what he told me."
Jabez Sanborn! Why, everybody around Sag Harbor knew about him; a shy old man, reputed a miser, who lived with a lad, his grandson, in a hut in the woods and was known to be addicted to wandering all along the coast at night, in a little fishing-smack, on errands best known to himself. Yes, the most likely man in the world to be met under just such circumstances was old Jabez Sanborn. And the least likely man to hear that a murder trial was going on in which he might be an important witness—or perhaps to care if he had heard it—was also old Jabez Sanborn. The prosecuting attorney felt that he had not drawn a trump that time at least. While he cast about mentally for something else that he might ask the witness, with at least the minimum of harm to his side of the case, a startling diversion occurred to interrupt the proceedings.