University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

It was not until long after noon of the day of
trial that Affidavy woke from the stupefaction into
which he was plunged by the cup he had so craftily
qualified; and then it was some time before he
could summon his recollection, and conceive where
he was. He found himself in a cell obviously of
the prison; for the single window that lighted it
was strongly grated, and the door fast bolted on
the outside. There was a bed hard by, in which,
as was apparent from its condition, some one had
passed the night; but who that might have been
he knew not, no one being now visible. As for
himself, he found that his couch had been nothing
better than the hard floor; and close by where he
lay, he discovered a pool of coagulated blood. He
was seized with alarm, and finding the door refuse
all egress, he ran to the window, and beheld in the
yard which it overlooked, a sight that, besides
filling him with new terror, conveyed an inkling
to his mind of his true situation and its cause.
This was nothing less than the dead bodies of two
men, lying stiff and gory upon a bench, without
even a cloth to conceal them from the light of
day.

“Botheration, and God bless my soul!” he cried,
“I'm a ruined man!”

“Done up,—as clean as a skinned eel,” said a
voice at his back; and, looking round, he beheld
his friend, the jailer, enter the cell, with a grim
smile on his visage, which was not much improved
in beauty by a red handkerchief, that swathed it
round from jaw to top-knot. “Done up, Teffy, my
boy, as slick as a new bolt. Who'll you have for
your counsel?—or do you think of pleading your
own cause? Ods bobs, you can make a good
speech;—I always said that for you.”

“Counsel!—cause!—speech!” echoed the man
of law;—“God bless our two souls!”

“Amen,—or e'er a one of 'em,” said Lingo,
with solemn utterance; “for I'm thinking it will
go hard with one of us. Howsomever, I'm glad
to see you in your senses. Sorry you had so hard
a bed of it; but howsomever, when they hang your
client up there, I'll give you better quarters. I
reckon, it will be imprisonment for life with you;
though some says, they are to try you on the capital
charge of aiding and 'betting with the tories,
which is clean hanging treason.”

“God bless our two souls!” said Affidavy, with
an air of wo and terror so irresistibly ludicrous,
that Lingo, perceiving his utterance failed to supply
any further expressions, burst into a loud laugh,
and threw himself on the vacant bed, where he
rolled over and over, giving way to mirth and
triumph together.

“Blarney and ods bobs!” he cried, after he had
amused himself awhile in this fashion; “and so
you thought to come the humbug over me, old
Teff! Ha, ha, ha! I always said you could make
a good speech, and so you can; but as to pulling
straws with Bob Lingo, why I never said no such
thing, for I won't lie for no man. How did you
like the cock-tail, with the cherry-bounce and doctor's

stuff in it? Ods bobs, did you think I could
go any such liquor as that? But now you see what
you've come to,—clean done up, broke, smashed,
pounded into hominy, and cribbed under lock and
key. So much for not playing fair, and making
honest snacks of the plunder! Where's them seventeen
guineas in goold? and the note for two thousand
more? Oh, you old ox-fly! would you have
sucked the poor young feller's blood?”

At the mention of these valuables, Affidavy, who
stood mute with surprise and dismay, clapped his
hands into his pockets, first into one and then the
other, and groaned to find them empty. “You've
robbed me, Bob Lingo!” he said.

“As clean as ever I curried a horse,” said the
jailer, betaking himself to his own pockets, and
displaying both the money and the treacherous
note, the latter of which he moved before Affidavy's
eyes with peculiar glee, saying,

“Here's evidence that'll be a smasher; and then
the bottle of laudanum! Oh, you old Teff,” he
cried, shaking his fist, but more in exultation than
anger, “when you mean to p'ison any of your
friends, don't you go for to get the p'ison the same
day; lay it up a month before-hand. Ods bobs, if
you wasn't as poor as a rat, I'd have an action
ag'in you on my own account, for an attempt to
murder. But, ods bobs, I do think now you look
like a singed cat,—I do, Affidavy!”

Here he burst into another roar, having indulged
which, he rose, and satisfied with the terror he had
inflicted, proceeded very cooly to inform the discomfited
prisoner that his case was not so bad as
he thought; that he had not `blowed him' yet;
and that he didn't know whether he would, for he
was a merciful man in his way. “I smoked you,
Affidavy,” said he, “as soon as I heard you talk

of your client, and saw you show that 'ere guinea,
—'specially when you fell so much in love with
me of a sudden, and with the jail here. I sent
Hans after you, and he saw you ride out on the
prisoner's horse; and, ods bobs, I thought of sending
some so'diers to dog after you; but they was
all out in the bushes already. Then I went to the
doctor's shop, to get some laudanum for an aching
tooth, and said he, `Vy there's Affidafy has peen
pying laudanum for an aching tooth, too!'—Oho!
said I; and then, old boy, I was ready for you.
And you see the end! while you was lying snorting
here like a corn-fed pig, we was knocking the
tories on the head at the yard-gate. And then we
had the coroner on 'em, and you no wiser; and
the magistrates and all the town inquiring into the
fuss, and you no wiser; and there, indeed, there's
your client, poor fellow, they're trying in court as
hard as they can, the evidence all over, the
speeches half done, and still, Affidavy, my boy,
you no wiser. Ha, ha! I do think you look like
an apple-dumpling that's tumbled out of the pot,
and staring up out of the ashes!”

“Well, Bob,” said Affidavy, with an attempt at
a laugh, that ended in a groan, “I knock under to
you: you've beat me hollow. But now, if you
please, and with many thanks to you for not blabbing,
I'll take that wallet, and the guineas; and
as for the silver, why I don't care if you keep it.”

“No, I reckon not,” said Lingo, with a grin.
“But, I'm thinking, you'll just take the silver yourself,
and be thankful I let you off so easy. What,
man, do you suppose I'll run the risk of defending
you from a prosecution—a criminal prosecution,
d'ye see—by holding my tongue, for nothing?
Don't go to be such a fool.”

“Well then,” said Theophilus, with a groan,
“do as you like, and let me out.”

“Not so fast, neither,” said Lingo; and then
added, with a nod of the head, “I reckon there's
more of the shiners where these come from?”

“Well,” said Affidavy, “what then?”

“Why then,” said Lingo, “I don't care if I run
a risk with you, and go snacks.”

“Will you?” said Affidavy. “Then, ehem,
humph!—You know what I mean; and there's a
thousand a-piece on that note!”

“The ready, old boy, the ready! hang all your
paper promises; I go for the ready.”

“Well then, let me out, and I'll state the case to
one we know of. But, I fear, the ready's not to
be had—We'll take a second note of the prisoner.”

“Ods bobs! are you there with your notes still?
Now if you come to that, I reckon I can do all that
without assistance, and no snacks neither. And
so good by to you.”

With that the jailer, giving the attorney another
nod, flung out of the cell, taking good care, however,
to lock the door behind him; leaving Affidavy
to suspect, as he did, that Lingo was resolved
to manage the case, and reap the harvest, on his
own account.

“Oh the villain!” sighed the disconsolate attorney.
“But I'll be even with him yet. Let me see
—hum—good! the rascal is already implicated,
having concealed my—faugh! So he will not dare
to accuse me now. Well, I'll see through it by
and by. That cursed laudanum! I do think it has
turned my brain into a dough-cake—Very well—
Was there ever such an ass!—That I should let
such a jolterhead get the upper hand of me!—I
wonder what's the matter with my ribs!—Nothing

to drink!—no, botheration, nor to eat, neither.—
Very well, Bob Lingo; I'll remember you.”

He then sought to relieve the perplexity of his
mind by walking about; but the excessive and
unnatural debauch had bereft him of strength, so
that he was soon compelled to sit down upon the
bed, where he found the stupor, which had not yet
entirely deserted his faculties, returning and growing
upon him, in spite of all his efforts to resist it.
In a word, he became again very drowsy, and
fearing lest some additional evil should befall him
if caught again napping, he rose up and looked
from the window, to divert his mind from its
lethargy. He saw, from the ruddy hue of the sunshine
on the neighbouring roofs, and the golden
tinge of the floating clouds, that the day was already
declining; by which he perceived how long
he had already slept, and wondered that, after
such a siege of slumber, he should so soon feel any
inclination to sleep again. But, while he wondered,
he found the clouds and house-tops blending
their outlines together on his vision, while the hum
of the village grew confused in his ear. He
stalked about again, then again sat down on the
bed; when, fearing lest that should seduce him into
slumber, and being incapable of remaining longer
upon his feet, he betook himself to a corner, where
he sat down on the floor, pursuing his meditations;
and there, after much nodding, musing, and
scratching of head, he fell, in spite of all efforts to
the contrary, fast asleep.

He slept long and soundly; and the shadows of
night had been long gathered over the earth, before
certain sounds in the narrow apartment,
mingling with his dreams, imparted to them the
horrors of nightmare, and then suddenly dispelled

them. He was awakened by a human groan,
hollow and sepulchral, but so loud that he deemed
it was breathed just at his ear; and looking up, he
beheld a spectacle that caused his hair to bristle
with terror. It was, as he perceived, dark night;
but a lamp, standing upon a little table near the
bed, poured a dim and ghastly light over the cell,
sufficient to reveal the few objects it contained.
Upon the bed sat a tall man, in his night-gear,
with a visage of death-like hue, and eyes staring
out of his head, which he rolled now to the right
hand and now to the left, as if gazing upon objects
invisible to the attorney; although Affidavy was
accustomed to declare afterwards, when good
cheer made him communicative, that he distinctly
saw at the right hand of the sick man, and not
fifteen feet from himself, a figure as of a man
swathed in a bloody sheet, that stood gazing the
other in the face, and gradually melted into the
obscurity, as he himself surveyed it more intently.
Be that as it may, there was enough of the ghostly
and terrific in the appearance and expressions of
the sick man, to keep the attorney cowering with
fear in his corner, without any addition of horrors
from the world of spirits; and accordingly, Affidavy
sat looking on and listening, without the
power to move, or even to rise.

The sick man continued to roll his eyes, occasionally
uttering deep groans, and now and then
muttering expressions that showed the horror of
his mind, without, at first, clearly disclosing the
cause.

“Ay, wave your hand,” he heard him say, as if
addressing some phantom revealed only to his own
senses; “wave your hand, and point to the bloody
throat: it was well aimed, boy, well aimed, and it

was well done. I care not for you: it is the other
that moves me; for him I killed with a lie, and
there he sits smiling! His face is black and
swollen, yet he smiles; his arms are bound behind,
yet he smiles; a rope is round his neck, yet he
smiles.—Ay, smile, boy, smile! that smile is heavier
on my heart than the frown of the soldier!—
A smile! men would call that poor revenge; but
we, boy, ha, ha! we know better!”

He then fell back upon the bed, and lay for a
moment quiet; so that Affidavy had leisure to recall
his spirits, and penetrate the mystery, which
had at first so deeply appalled him. His first
thought was, that he was enclosed with some
wounded refugee, captured in the toils to which
he himself had unwittingly brought him; but remembering
presently that he had seen two bodies
stretched in the yard below, and had good reason,
from Lingo's expressions, to believe the third man
had made his escape, he perceived that this must
be some prisoner of an earlier date; and he knew
that, the night before, there were but three in Lingo's
charge. With the person of the unfortunate
Hyland he was already well acquainted, and Dancy
Parkins was, it might be said, his old acquaintance.
His thoughts reverted immediately to Sterling,
whom he had never seen; and he remembered, at
the same time, that Lingo had hinted to him the
ease with which he might weaken this man's testimony,
if that were desirable, by convicting him of
insanity. “Oho, the dog, Lingo!” said he to himself;
“he has shut me up with a madman then?
Now, if he should be dangerous, God bless our two
souls!—Ha! there, he's rising again! God bless
our two souls!”

“They are gone then?” muttered the wretch,

in whose sunken features, hollow voice, and altered
spirit, one would with difficulty have recognised
the humorous, bold, and reckless adventurer;
“they are gone; but it will not be long. Hah!” he
added, fixing his eye, with a fearful stare, upon the
vacant wall, “you come again, and frowning!
Yet I fear not: other men have shed blood, and
lived happy. It is not for you, but for the other—
him that lies across my feet smiling! Hah, what!”
he screamed, rather than said, as his eye, wandering
towards the foot of the bed, suddenly fell upon
the figure of Affidavy, in his corner, now cowering
low with terror, “are there three? Devil! you
lie!” he exclaimed, leaping out of bed, “there
were but two—him that I shot, and him that I
killed with false witness. Ha, ha, ha! these are
juggling fiends! devils of legerdemain! that make
a man worse than he is! You look me in the face
—Well! I look back:—do you think to fright me?
Look at me then, and say, if you dare, that I hurt
you!”

And with these words, he advanced towards
Affidavy, who now perceived that his right arm
was swathed in bandages across his breast, as if
maimed by some injury. But his left hand he
brandished with menacing gesticulation, and his
countenance was covered with a ghastly frown;
so that Affidavy feared nothing less than that he
should be immediately torn to pieces. From this
apprehension, which deprived him of the power of
raising a finger in self-defence, he was relieved by
the sudden appearance of the jailer, who, entering
the cell with an oath, seized upon the madman,
and shook him with violence, until he groaned
with pain, suffering himself to be pushed back upon
the bed.

“I'll have the law of you, Bob Lingo!” said the
attorney, starting up from an ecstasy of fear to
lanch into a tumult of rage; “I'll have the law of
you, you villain! and what's more, I'll chouse you
out of your fees and bribes,—your cheating and
tampering with the prisoner, Hyland Gilbert: he's
an innocent man, you rascal, and you know it!
and here's this man Sterling has avowed the murder
himself.”

“Ods bobs!” said Lingo, “what do you
mean?”

“I mean what I say,” cried Affidavy, whom
rage, the desire of requiting upon Lingo some of
the disappointments he had himself endured, and a
sudden prospect that seemed to open on him of
retrieving his lost fortune, had restored to the possession
of his faculties. “I mean, that my client,
Hyland Gilbert, whom you cheated out of my services,
is an innocent man; and that there lies the
true criminal. He has confessed the whole matter;
murder and perjury—murder and perjury,
you villain! do you hear that? and I'll make him
depose the particulars, you cheating, covetous,
conniving rapscallion! and so chouse you out of
all your expected fees, you rascal! botheration, I
will!—Harkee, you Sterling!” he said, now advancing
boldly towards the object of his late fears,
“you've blabbed all, and so you may as well confess
at once. I overheard all you said; and my
testimony will settle the matter; so, for the good
of your soul, confess. You're a dying man;
the devil's as good as got you already—you'll
not last a day longer; so confess, confess, and
don't damn yourself for ever, by hanging an
innocent man. What! do you pretend to deny it?”
he continued; adopting a course of persuasion

founded on what he had witnessed of the prisoner's
hallucinations—“ do you see that young man
there, with the bloody throat, frowning? Look—
I know him well—it is young Harry Falconer!”

“Ay,” said Sterling, rolling his eyes to the wall;
“but where is the other?”

“Why, they are hanging him; and all because
you swore falsely against him.”

“Is he alive yet?” muttered Sterling; “I thought
he was dead. Send me a priest, and I'll confess.”

“A priest! A magistrate, you mean.”

“It is all one—I am a dying man; there is
something wrong here,—here,” he murmured,
striking his forehead. “I will do reparation—ask
me what you will; but drive Henry Falconer out
of the room; ay, and take that young Hawk off
my feet—he chills them to the marrow.”

“It was your pistol killed Henry Falconer?”
cried the lawyer.

“Ay; I shot him over Gilbert's shoulder. I fired
at both; either would have served me. But
who was the third one? Old Falconer did not
die!”

“A justice of the peace, Lingo! do you hear?”
said Affidavy, grinning with triumph. “I reckon
I'll sort you, you covetous, cheating dog!”

“Come, squire, don't be mad,” whispered the
jailer, with two or three significant winks: “We'll
go snacks yet.”

“What, you rascal, do you think to bribe me to
keep silence? Oho! you cormorant, I've got the
play now in my own hands; and we won't go
snacks: I work on my own foundation. You've
heard the man's words here; deny them if you
can. Send for a squire, or refuse at your peril;
I'll bawl out the window, and raise the town.”

“There's no need of being contractious,” said
Lingo, coolly. “I sent Hanschen for old Squire
Leger an hour ago; for I reckon I was a leetle
before you! The man asked for him of his own
accord, while you was a snoozing in the corner;
for it's a gone case with him, and he knows it.”

The lawyer was petrified at this announcement;
it was a new and mortal disappointment; for he
designed to make profitable use to himself of his
discovery; and to complete his confusion, the door
was opened at that moment, and Hanschen entered,
ushering in the worthy Schlachtenschlager, whom
he had lighted upon by accident, after searching
in vain for the other magistrate, after whom he
had been sent an hour before. The attorney
groaned; with one hand he grasped the Squire's
extended palm, and the other he shook in the face
of Lingo, who grinned, and winked, and nodded
at him, with the most provoking good-humour.
But Affidavy was not a man to be disheartened
even in such an extremity; he no longer dreaded
an exposure of his extra-professional services on
the prisoner's behalf; and he perceived that there
was still a field, although a narrow one, on which
to display his zeal. Trusting therefore to his skill
to make his client sensible of the full merit of his
labour, he addressed himself to the task of shriving
the discovered felon, with a tact and sagacity that
were soon perceived to be as useful as they were
really indispensable.

It was found that Sterling was in a very critical
state, his bodily powers being completely wrecked,
and his mind so much unhinged that he could
scarce answer two consecutive questions without
wandering. The causes that had brought him to
this condition it was not easy to imagine, unless

by supposing he had received some fatal internal
injury during his struggle with Oran Gilbert; or
by referring all at once to the horror of mind with
which, it seemed, he had been affected from the
moment he felt himself a homicide. A homicide
he was, as was soon made apparent; for being led
on and assisted by the questions of Affidavy, he
confessed, without any reluctance or attempt at
equivocation, that he had sworn falsely in regard
to the exchange of pistols betwixt himself and
Hyland, such exchange never having taken
place; and that he, and no other, had shot the
pistol that killed young Falconer. The reasons
for this act were but imperfectly developed; and
the strongest seemed to be a bitter hatred he had
conceived against the deceased, in consequence of
an indignity offered him long since in the theatre,
from which he had been hissed, chiefly through
Falconer's instrumentality. Such a cause for vengeance
may be understood by those who remember
the rivers of blood poured out at Lyons, ten
years after, to satiate the rankling fury of a Collot
d'Herbois. It will be remembered in what manner
he volunteered, while in the swamp with Oran
Gilbert, to take the life of this unlucky youth; as
well as the attempt he made upon it the following
night, in the park, when he discovered him struggling
with Hyland. It appeared, besides, that after
having rendered himself into the hands of the pursuers,
and confessed his true name and character,
the reckless lieutenant pursued him with divers
jests and jeers, which were the more intolerable
that his quarrel with the Gilberts had left his mind
in a state of furious passion; and an additional
incentive was offered by the scuffle between the
two rivals, in which any execution of vengeance
would be so readily imputed to accident, if traced
to him at all. He succeeded beyond his expectations;
the object of his hatred lay a corpse before
him—but from that moment Sterling was another
and a changed man. His mind was filled with
horror—not remorse, for to the last he testified
nothing like penitence—but with a nameless and
oppressive dread, which was increased tenfold by
the reflection that this act had, or would in the end,
deprive a second fellow being of life, that second
being the unfortunate youth whom an extraordinary
accident had imbued with a belief that he
was himself the murderer. Hence the singular
turn of his testimony, and his attempt to throw a
doubt upon the prisoner's guilt; until the sudden
discovery of the damaged pistol struck him with
a fear, until then unfelt, for his own safety. He
dreaded lest his own weapons, which had been
taken from him immediately after the catastrophe,
and from which, in the agitation of his spirits, he
had forgotten to remove the evidences of guilt,
should be examined, and thus suspicion diverted
upon himself. To prevent this, he invented the
falsehood concerning the exchange, and thus
screened himself from suspicion, at the expense of
a second act of murder. But from that moment his
horror became insupportable; and after struggling
with it in vain, and becoming persuaded that his
own fate was drawing nigh, he summoned Lingo,
made a deliberate confession of his villany, and
desired that his deposition might be taken, before
his madness, of whose approaches he seemed conscious,
should render reparation impossible.

It was now taken, and with difficulty, but it was
conclusive; and so intent became all present upon
the strange and impressive story, and, after it was

concluded, so eager were all to confirm it by inducing
repetitions of the most important circumstances,
that even the sudden sound of fire-arms
on the square, followed by the outcries in Hyland's
cell, were unheard and unnoticed, until Hanschen
suddenly rushed among them, with the intelligence,
as he expressed it, `that there fas murdter going
on in the Hawk's room.'

All started up, leaving Sterling to rave, perhaps
to die, alone, and made their way to the prisoner's
apartment, where Colonel Falconer was found
weltering in blood in the arms of Elsie and his
son, a rifle-bullet having penetrated his side, and
lodged in the body; and it was soon gathered,
from the remorseful expressions of Hyland, that it
had been shot by a refugee—the last act of friendship
that could be rendered to a helpless and hopeless
comrade.

“It was shot by Oran Gilbert,” said Elsie Bell,
“for there is none left but him! Yes, Richard
Falconer, I said it would come sooner or later!
It is well for you, too,—you will not see the death
of your son's murderer!”

“He is innocent!” said Affidavy, snatching at
his client's hand. “Botheration, my boy, we've
found the true murderer! He has confessed, and
you are an innocent man. The pistol was shot by
Sterling! We'll clear you, or secure a free pardon.”

“By Sterling!” murmured Colonel Falconer.
“Then, oh heaven! then is my son guiltless of his
brother's blood!”

“I am, father, I am!” said Hyland; “but,
wretch that I am, my madness and folly have
killed my father!”

“I die content.—I will do you justice, my son—

I am not so faint as before—They shall carry me
to—to—I forget—it is no matter—Well, well”—

With these words he fell into a swoon, in which
he was at first esteemed dead; but a surgeon
having been sent for, and now entering the cell,
he declared, upon a hasty inspection of the wound,
that it was by no means mortal, and that there
was every reason to prognosticate a speedy recovery.
The sufferer was then carried to the inn,
and put to bed; but with no such assurances of
life as had been pronounced in the prison. A consultation
was called, the result of which was a
more rational declaration, that his days were
already numbered.