“Is that it?” asked the prosecuting attorney, placing the box in his hands.
“That is the same box I gave him, upon my oath. It's a good deal rusted now, but there's the holes as I punched them; and by the same token, there is the letter P., the very place yet where the two holes broke into one, as I was punchin' it.”
“Pray, how did the box come to turn up?” asked the judge:—“In whose possession has it been ever since?”
“My lord, we have just come to that. Crier, call Eleanor M'Guirk.”
The woman hitherto known as Nelly M'Gowan, and supposed to be the Prophet's wife now made her appearance.
“Will you state to the gentlemen of the jury what you know about this box?”
Our readers are partially aware of her evidence with respect to it. We shall, however, briefly recapitulate her account of the circumstance.
“The first time she ever saw it,” she said, “was the night the carman was murdered, or that he disappeared, at any rate. She resided by herself, in a little house at the mouth of the Glendhu—the same she and the Prophet had lived in ever since. They had not long been acquainted at that time—but still longer than was right or proper. She had been very little in the country then, and any time he did come was principally at night, when he stopped with her, and went away again, generally before day in the morning. He passed himself on her as an unmarried man, and said his name was M'Gowan. On that evening he came about dusk, but went out again, and she did not see him till far in the night, when he returned, and appeared to be fatigued and agitated—his clothes, too, were soiled and crumpled, especially the collar of his shirt, which was nearly torn off, as in a struggle of some kind. She asked him what was the matter with him, and said he looked as if he had been fighting.” He replied—
“No, Nelly; but I've killed two birds with one stone this night.”
She asked him what he meant by those words, but he would give her no further information.