"No, I don't!" said Arthur, suddenly, awakening with a glow of Protestant and heretical objection that was new to him, and eyeing Padre Felipe with the first glance of suspicion he had ever cast upon that venerable ecclesiastic. "No, sir, I never heard any intimation or suggestion of the kind from the late Donna Dolores. On the contrary, I was engaged"——
"Pardon—pardon me, my son," interrupted Father Felipe, taking another large pinch of snuff. "It is not now, scarce twenty-four hours since the dear child was translated—not in her masses and while her virgin strewments are not yet faded—that we will talk of this" (he blew his nose violently). "No! All in good time—thou shalt see! But I have something here," he continued, turning over some letters and papers in his desk. "Something for you—possibly, most possibly, more urgent. It is a telegraphic despatch for you, to my care."
He handed a yellow envelope to Arthur. But Poinsett's eyes were suddenly fixed upon a card which lay upon Padre Felipe's table, and which the Padre's search for the despatch had disclosed. Written across its face was the name of Colonel Culpepper Starbottle of Siskiyou! "Do you know that man?" asked Poinsett, holdingthe despatch unopened in his hand, and pointing to the card.
Father Felipe took another pinch of snuff. "Possibly—most possibly! A lawyer, I think—I think! Some business of the Church property! I have forgotten. But your despatch, Don Arturo. What says it? It does not take you from us? And you—only an hour here?"
Father Felipe paused, and looking up innocently, found the eyes of Arthur regarding him gravely. The two men examined each other intently. Arthur's eyes, at last, withdrew from the clear, unshrinking glance of Padre Felipe, unabashed but unsatisfied. A sudden recollection of the thousand and one scandals against the Church, and wild stories of its far-reaching influence—a swift remembrance of the specious craft and cunning charged upon the religious order of which Padre Felipe was a member—scandals that he had hitherto laughed at as idle—flashed through his mind. Conscious that he was now putting himself in a guarded attitude before the man with whom he had always been free and outspoken, Arthur, after a moment's embarrassment that was new to him, turned for relief to the despatch and opened it. In an instant it drove all other thoughts from his mind. Its few words were from Dumphy and ran, characteristically, as follows: "Gabriel Conroy arrested for murder of Victor Ramirez. What do you propose? Answer."
Arthur rose to his feet. "When does the up-stage pass through San Geronimo?" he asked, hurriedly.
"At midnight!" returned Padre Felipe. "Surely, my son, you do not intend"——
"And it is now nine o'clock," continued Arthur, consulting his watch. "Can you procure me a fresh horse? It is of the greatest importance, Father," he added, recovering his usual frankness.
"Ah! it is urgent!—it is a matter"——suggested the Padre, gently.
"Of life and death!" responded Arthur gravely.
Father Felipe rang a bell and gave some directions to a servant, while Arthur, seating himself at the table, wrote an answer to the despatch. "I can trust you to send it as soon as possible to the telegraph office," he said, handing it to Father Felipe.
The Padre took it in his hand, but glanced anxiously at Arthur. "And Donna Maria?" he said, hesitatingly; "you have not seen her yet! Surely you will stop at the Blessed Fisherman, if only for a moment, eh?"
Arthur drew his riding-coat and cape over his shoulders with a mischievous smile. "I am afraid not, Father; I shall trust to you to explain that I was recalled suddenly, and that I had not time to call; knowing the fascinations of your society, Father, she will not begrudge the few moments I have spent with you."
Before Father Felipe could reply the servant entered with the announcement that the horse was ready.
"Good-night, Father Felipe," said Arthur, pressing the priest's hands warmly, with every trace of his former suspiciousness gone. "Good night. A thousand thanks for the horse. In speeding the parting guest," he added, gravely, "you have perhaps done more for the health of my soul than you imagine—good-night.Adios!"
With a light laugh in his ears, the vision of a graceful, erect figure, waving a salute from a phantom steed, an inward rush of the cold grey fog, and muffled clatter of hoofs over the mouldy and mossy marbles in the churchyard, Father Felipe parted from his guest. He uttered a characteristic adjuration, took a pinch of snuff, and closing the door, picked up the card of the gallant Colonel Starbottle and tossed it into the fire.
But the perplexities of the holy Father ceased not with the night. At an early hour in the morning, Donna Maria Sepulvida appeared before him at breakfast, suspicious, indignant, and irate.
"Tell me, Father Felipe," she said, hastily, "did the Don Arturo pass the night here?"
"Truly no, my daughter," answered the Padre, cautiously. "He was here but for a little"——
"And he went away when?" interrupted Donna Maria.
"At nine."
"And where?" continued Donna Maria, with a rising colour.
"To San Francisco, my child; it was business of great importance—but sit down, sit, little one! This impatience is of the devil, daughter, you must calm yourself."
"And do you know, Father Felipe, that he went away without comingnear me?" continued Donna Maria, in a higher key, scarcely heeding her ghostly confessor.
"Possibly, most possibly! But he received a despatch—it was of the greatest importance."
"A despatch!" repeated Donna Maria, scornfully. "Truly—from whom?"
"I know not, my child," said Father Felipe, gazing at the pink cheeks, indignant eyes, and slightly swollen eyelids of his visitor; "this impatience—this anger is most unseemly."
"Was it from Mr. Dumphy?" reiterated Donna Maria, stamping her little foot.
Father Felipe drew back his chair. Through what unhallowed spell had this woman—once the meekest and humblest of wives—become the shrillest and most shrewest of widows? Was she about to revenge herself on Arthur for her long suffering with the late Don José? Father Felipe pitied Arthur now and prospectively.
"Are you going to tell me?" said Donna Maria, tremulously, with alarming symptoms of hysteria.
"I believe it was from Mr. Dumphy," stammered Padre Felipe. "At least the answer Don Arturo gave me to send in reply—only these words, 'I will return at once'—was addressed to Mr. Dumphy. But I know not what was the messagehereceived."
"You don't!" said Donna Maria, rising to her feet, with white in her cheek, fire in her eyes, and a stridulous pitch in her voice. "You don't! Well! I will tell you! It was the same news thatthisbrought." She took a telegraphic despatch from her pocket and shook it in the face of Father Felipe. "There! read it! That was the news sent to him! That was the reason why he turned and ran away like a coward as he is! That was the reason why he never came near me, like a perjured traitor as he is! That is the reason why he came to you with his fastidious airs and, his supercilious smile—and his—his—Oh, how IHATE HIM! That is why!—read it! read it! Why don't you read it?" (She had been gesticulating with it, waving it in the air wildly, and evading every attempt of Father Felipe to take it from her.) "Read it! Read it and see why! Read and see that I am ruined!—a beggar—a cajoled and tricked and deceived woman—between these two villains, Dumphy and Mis—ter—Arthur—Poin—sett! Ah! Read it—or are you a traitor too? You and Dolores and all"——
She crumpled the paper in her hands, threw it on the floor, whitened suddenly round the lips, and then followed the paper as suddenly, at full length, in a nervous spasm at Father Felipe's feet. Father Felipe gazed, first at the paper and then at the rigid form of his friend. He was a man, an old one—with some experience of the sex, and I regret to say he picked up thepaperfirst, and straighteneditout. It was a telegraphic despatch in the following words:—
"Sorry to say telegram just received that earthquake has dropped out lead of Conroy Mine! Everything gone up! Can't make further advances or sell stock.—Dumphy."
"Sorry to say telegram just received that earthquake has dropped out lead of Conroy Mine! Everything gone up! Can't make further advances or sell stock.—Dumphy."
Father Felipe bent over Donna Maria and raised her in his arms. "Poor little one!" he said. "But I don't think Arthur knew it."
For once, by a cruel irony, the adverse reports regarding the stability of the Conroy mine were true. A few stockholders still clung to the belief that it was a fabrication to depress the stock, but the fact as stated in Mr. Dumphy's despatch to Donna Maria was in possession of the public. The stock, fell to $35, to $30, to $10—to nothing! An hour after the earthquake it was known in One Horse Gulch that the "lead" had "dropped" suddenly, and that a veil of granite of incalculable thickness had been upheaved between the seekers and the treasure, now lost in the mysterious depths below. The vein was gone! Where?—no one could tell. There were various theories, more or less learned: there was one party who believed in the "subsidence" of the vein, another who believed in the "interposition" of the granite, but all tending to the same conclusion—the inaccessibility of the treasure. Science pointed with stony finger to the evidence of previous phenomena of the same character visible throughout the Gulch. But the grim "I told you so" of Nature was, I fear, no more satisfactory to the dwellers of One Horse Gulch than the ordinary prophetic distrust of common humanity.
The news spread quickly and far. It overtook several wandering Californians in Europe, and sent them to theirbankers with anxious faces; it paled the cheeks of one or two guardians of orphan children, frightened several widows, drove a confidential clerk into shameful exile, and struck Mr. Raynor in Boston with such consternation, that people for the first time suspected that he had backed his opinion of the resources of California with capital. Throughout the length and breadth of the Pacific slope it produced a movement of aggression which the earthquake had hitherto failed to cover. The probabilities of danger to life and limb by a recurrence of the shock had been dismissed from the public consideration, but this actual loss of characteristic property awakened the gravest anxiety. If Nature claimed the privilege of at any time withdrawing from that implied contract under which so many of California's best citizens had occupied and improved the country, it was high time that something should be done. Thus spake an intelligent and unfettered press. A few old residents talked of returning to the East.
During this excitement Mr. Dumphy bore himself toward the world generally with perfect self-confidence, and, if anything, an increased aggressiveness. His customers dared not talk of their losses before him, or exhibit a stoicism unequal to his own.
"It's a bad business," he would say; "what do you propose?" And as the one latent proposition in each human breast was the return of the money invested, and as no one dared to make that proposition, Mr. Dumphy was, as usual, triumphant. In this frame of mind Mr. Poinsett found him on his return from the Mission of San Antonio, the next morning.
"Bad news, I suppose, down there," said Mr. Dumphy, briskly; "and I reckon the widow, though she has been luckier than her neighbours, don't feel particularly lively, eh? I'm devilish sorry for you, Poinsett, though, as aman, you can see that the investment was a good one. But you can't make a woman understand business. Eh? Well, the Rancho's worth double the mortgage, I reckon. Eh? Ugly, ain't she—of course! Said she'd been swindled? That's like a woman! You and me know 'em! eh, Poinsett?" Mr. Dumphy emitted his characteristic bark, and winked at his visitor.
Arthur looked up in unaffected surprise. "If you mean Mrs. Sepulvida," he said, coldly, "I haven't seen her. I was on my way there when your telegram recalled me. I had some business with Padre Felipe."
"You don't know then that the Conroy mine has gone up with the earthquake, eh? Lead dropped out—eh? and the widow's fifty-six thousand?"—here Mr. Dumphy snapped his finger and thumb, to illustrate the lame and impotent conclusion of Donna Maria's investment—"don't you know that?"
"No," said Arthur, with perfect indifference and a languid abstraction that awed Mr. Dumphy more than anxiety; "no, I don't. But I imagine that isn't the reason you telegraphed me."
"No," returned Dumphy, still eyeing Poinsett keenly for a possible clue to this singular and unheard-of apathy to the condition of the fortune of the woman his visitor was about to marry. "No—of course!"
"Well!" said Arthur, with that dangerous quiet which was the only outward sign of interest and determination in his nature. "I'm going up to One Horse Gulch to offer my services as counsel to Gabriel Conroy. Now for the details of this murder, which, by the way, I don't believe Gabriel committed, unless he's another man than the one I knew! After that you can tell meyourbusiness with me, for I don't suppose you telegraphed to me on his account solely. Of course, at first you felt it was to yourinterest to get him and his wife out of the way, now that Ramirez is gone. But now, if you please, let me know whatyouknow about this murder."
Mr. Dumphy thus commanded, and completely under the influence of Arthur's quiet will, briefly recounted the particulars already known to the reader, of which he had been kept informed by telegraph.
"He's been recaptured," added Dumphy, "I learn by a later despatch; and I don't reckon there'll be another attempt to lynch him. I've managedthat," he continued, with a return of his old self-assertion. "I've got some influence there!"
For the first time during the interview Arthur awoke from his pre-occupation, and glanced keenly at Dumphy. "Of course," he returned, coolly, "I don't suppose you such a fool as to allow the only witness you have of your wife's death to be sacrificed—even if you believed that the impostor who was personating your wife had been charged with complicity in a capital crime and had fled from justice. You're not such a fool as to believe that this Mrs. Conroy won't try to help her husband, that she evidently loves, by every means in her power—that she won't make use of any secret she may have that concerns you to save him and herself. No, Mr. Peter Dumphy," said Arthur significantly; "no, you're too much of a business man not to see that." As he spoke he noted the alternate flushing and paling of Mr. Dumphy's face, and read—I fear with the triumphant and instinctive consciousness of a superior intellect—that Mr. Dumphyhadbeen precisely such a fool, and had failed!
"I reckon nobody will put much reliance on the evidence of a woman charged with a capital crime," said Mr. Dumphy, with a show of confidence he was far from feeling.
"Suppose that she and Gabriel both swear thatsheknows your abandoned wife, for instance; suppose that they both swear that she and you connived to personate Grace Conroy for the sake of getting the title to this mine; suppose that she alleges that she repented and married Gabriel, as she did, and suppose that they both admit the killing of this Ramirez—and assert that you were persecuting them through him, and still are; suppose that they show that he forged a second grant to the mine—throughyourinstigation?"
"It's a lie," interrupted Dumphy, starting to his feet; "he did it from jealousy."
"Can youprovehis motives?" said Arthur.
"But the grant was not in my favour—it was to some old Californian down in the Mission of San Antonio. I can prove that," said Dumphy, excitedly.
"Suppose you can? Nobody imagines you so indiscreet as to have had another grant conveyed toyou directly, while you were negotiating with Gabriel forhis. Don't be foolish!Iknow you had nothing to do with the forged grant. I am only suggesting how you have laid yourself open to the charges of a woman of whom you are likely to make an enemy, and might have made an ally. If you calculate to revenge Ramirez, consider first if you care to have it proved that he was a confidential agent of yours—as they will, if you don't helpthem. Never mind whether they committed the murder. You are not their judge or accuser. You must help them for your own sake. No!" continued Arthur, after a pause, "congratulate yourself that the Vigilance Committee did not hang Gabriel Conroy, and that you have not to add revenge to the other motives of a desperate and scheming woman."
"But are you satisfied that Mrs. Conroyisreally the person who stands behind Colonel Starbottle and personates my wife?"
"I am," replied Arthur, positively.
Dumphy hesitated a moment. Should he tell Arthur of Colonel Starbottle's interview with him, and the delivery and subsequent loss of the mysterious envelope? Arthur read his embarrassment plainly, and precipitated his decision with a single question.
"Have you had any further interview with Colonel Starbottle?"
Thus directly adjured. Dumphy hesitated no longer, but at once repeated the details of his late conversation with Starbottle, his successful bribery of the Colonel, the delivery of the sealed envelope under certain conditions, and its mysterious disappearance. Arthur heard him through with quiet interest, but when Mr. Dumphy spoke of the loss of the envelope, he fixed his eyes on Mr. Dumphy's with a significance that was unmistakable.
"You say you lost this envelope trusted to your honour!" said Arthur, with slow and insulting deliberation. "Lost it, without having opened it or learned its contents? That was very unfortunate, Mr. Dumphy, ve-ry un-for-tu-nate!"
The indignation of an honourable man at the imputation of some meanness foreign to his nature is weak compared with the anger of a rascal accused of an offence which he might have committed, but didn't. Mr. Dumphy turned almost purple! It was so evident that he had not been guilty of concealing the envelope, and did not know its contents, that Arthur was satisfied.
"He denied any personal knowledge of Mrs. Conroy in this affair?" queried Arthur.
"Entirely! He gave me to understand that his instructions were received from another party unknown to me," said Dumphy. "Look yer, Poinsett—you're wrong! I don't believe it is that woman."
Arthur shook his head. "No one else possesses the informationnecessary to blackmail you. No one else has a motive in doing it."
The door opened to a clerk bearing a card. Mr. Dumphy took it impatiently and read aloud, "Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou!" He then turned an anxious face to Poinsett.
"Good," said that gentleman, quietly; "admit him." As the clerk disappeared, Arthur turned to Dumphy, "I suppose it was to meet this man you sent for me?"
"Yes," returned Dumphy, with a return of his old brusqueness.
"Then hold your tongue, and leave everything to me."
The door opened as he spoke to Colonel Starbottle's frilled shirt and expanding bosom, followed at a respectful interval by the gallant Colonel himself. He was evidently surprised by the appearance of Mr. Dumphy's guest, but by no means dashed in his usual chivalrous port and bearing. "My legal adviser, Mr. Poinsett," said Dumphy, introducing Arthur briefly.
The gallant Colonel bowed stiffly, while Arthur, with a smile of fascinating courtesy and deference that astonished Dumphy in proportion as it evidently flattered and gratified Colonel Starbottle, stepped forward and extended his hand. "As a younger member of the profession I can hardly claim the attention of one so experienced as Colonel Starbottle, but as the friend of poor Henry Beeswinger, I can venture to take the hand of the man who so gallantly stood by him as his second, two years ago."
"Ged, sir," said Colonel Starbottle, absolutely empurpling with pleasure, and exploding his handkerchief from his sweltering breast. "Ged! you—er—er—do me proud! I am—er—gratified, sir, to meet any friend of—er—er—gentleman like Hank Beeswinger! I remember the whole affair, sir, as if it was yesterday. I do!" with an oath."Gratifying, Mr. Poinsett, to every gentleman concerned. Your friend, sir,—I'm proud to meet you—I am,——me!—killed, sir, second fire! Dropped like a gentleman,——me! No fuss; no reporters; no arrests. Friends considerate. Blank me, sir, one of the finest, d—— me, I may say, sir, one of the very finest—er—meetings in which I have—er—participated. Glad to know you, sir. You call to mind, sir, one of the—er—highest illustrations of a code of honour—that—er—er—under the present—er—degrading state of public sentiment is er—er—passing away. We are drifting sir, drifting—drifting to er—er—political and social condition, where the Voice of Honour, sir, is drowned by the Yankee watchword of Produce and Trade. Trade, sir, blank me!" Colonel Starbottle paused with a rhetorical full stop, blew his nose, and gazed at the ceiling with a plaintive suggestion that the days of chivalry had indeed passed, and that American institutions were indeed retrograding; Mr. Dumphy leaned back in his chair in helpless irritability; Mr. Arthur Poinsett alone retained an expression of courteous and sympathising attention.
"I am the more gratified at meeting Colonel Starbottle," said Arthur, gravely, "from the fact that my friend and client here, Mr. Dumphy is at present in a condition where he most needs the consideration and understanding of a gentleman and a man of honour. A paper, which has been entrusted to his safe keeping and custody as a gentleman, has disappeared since the earthquake, and it is believed that during the excitement of that moment it was lost! The paper is supposed to be intact, as it was in an envelope thathad never been opened, and whose seals were unbroken. It is a delicate matter, but I am rejoiced that the gentleman who left the paper in trust is the honourable Colonel Starbottle, whom I know by reputation, and thegentleman who suffered the misfortune of losing it is my personal friend Mr. Dumphy. It enables me at once to proffer my services as mediator, or as Mr. Dumphy's legal adviser and friend, to undertakeallresponsibility in the matter."
The tone and manner were so like Colonel Starbottle's own, that Dumphy looked from Arthur to Colonel Starbottle in hopeless amazement. The latter gentleman dropped his chin and fixed a pair of astonished and staring eyes upon Arthur. "Do I understand—that—er—this gentleman, Mr. Dumphy, has placed you in possession of any confidential statement—that—er"——
"Pardon me, Colonel Starbottle," interrupted Arthur, rising with dignity, "the facts I have just stated are sufficient for the responsibility I assume in this case. I learn from my client that a sealed paper placed in his hands is missing. I have from him the statement that I am bound to believe, that it passed from his hands unopened; where, he knows not. This is a matter, between gentlemen, serious enough without further complication!"
"And the paper and envelope are lost?" continued Colonel Starbottle, still gazing at Arthur.
"Are lost," returned Arthur, quietly. "I have advised my friend, Mr. Dumphy, that as a man of honour, and a business man, he is by no means freed through this unfortunate accident from any promise or contract that he may have entered into with you concerning it. Any deposit as a collateral for its safe delivery which he might have made,or has promised to make, is clearly forfeited. This he has been waiting only for your appearance to hand to you." Arthur crossed to Mr. Dumphy's side and laid his hand lightly upon his shoulder, but with a certain significance of grip palpable to Mr. Dumphy, who, after looking into his eyes, took out his cheque book. Whenhe had filled in a duplicate of the cheque he had given Colonel Starbottle two days before, Arthur took it from his hand and touched the bell. "As we will not burden Colonel Starbottle unnecessarily, your cashier's acceptance of this paper will enable him to use it henceforth at his pleasure, and as I expect to have the pleasure of the Colonel's company to my office, will you kindly have this done at once?"
The clerk appeared, and at Mr. Poinsett's direction, took the cheque from the almost passive fingers of Mr. Dumphy.
"Allow me to express my perfect satisfaction with—er—er your explanation!" said Colonel Starbottle, extending one hand to Arthur, while at the same moment he gracefully readjusted his shirt-bosom with the other. "Trouble yourself no further—regarding the—er—er—paper. I trust it will—er—yet be found; if not, sir, I shall—er—er—" added the Colonel, with honourable resignation, "hold myselfpersonally responsibleto my client, blank me!"
"Was there no mark upon the envelope by which it might be known without explaining its contents?" suggested Arthur.
"None, sir, a plain yellow envelope. Stop!" said the Colonel, striking his forehead with his hand. "Ged, sir! I do remember now that during our conversation I made a memorandum, —— me, a memorandum upon the face of it, across it, a name, Ged, sir, the very name of the party you were speaking of—Gabriel Conroy!"
"You wrote the name of Gabriel Conroy upon it! Good! That may lead to its identification without exposing its contents," returned Arthur. "Well, sir?"
The last two words were addressed to Mr. Dumphy's clerk, who had entered during the Colonel's speech and stood staring alternately at him and his employer, holding the accepted cheque in his hand.
"Give it to the gentleman," said Dumphy, curtly.
The man obeyed. Colonel Starbottle took the cheque, folded it, and placed it somewhere in the moral recesses of his breast-pocket. That done, he turned to Mr. Dumphy. "I need not say—er—that—er—as far as my personal counsel and advice to my client can prevail, it will be my effort to prevent litigation in this—er—delicate affair. Should the envelope—er—er—turn up! you will of course—er—send it to me, who am—er—personally responsible for it. Ged, sir," continued the Colonel, "I should be proud to conclude this affair, conducted as it has been on your side with the strictest honour, over the—er—festive-board—but—er—business prevents me! I leave here in one hour for One Horse Gulch!"
Both Mr. Dumphy and Poinsett involuntarily started.
"One Horse Gulch?" repeated Arthur.
"—— me! yes! Ged, sir, I'm retained in a murder case there; the case of this man Gabriel Conroy."
Arthur cast a swift precautionary look at Dumphy. "Then perhaps we may be travelling companions?" he said to Starbottle, smiling pleasantly. "I am going there too. Perhaps my good fortune may bring us in friendly counsel. You are engaged"——
"For the prosecution," interrupted Starbottle, slightly expanding his chest. "At the request of relatives of the murdered man—a Spanish gentleman of—er—er—large and influential family connections, I shall assist the District Attorney, my old friend, Nelse Buckthorne!"
The excitement kindled in Arthur's eyes luckily did not appear in his voice. It was still pleasant to Colonel Starbottle's ear, as, after a single threatening glance of warning at the utterly mystified and half exploding Dumphy, he turned gracefully toward him. "And if, by the fortunes of war, we should be again on opposite sides, my dearColonel, I trust that our relations may be as gratifying as they have been to-day. One moment! I am going your way. Let me beg you to take my arm a few blocks and a glass of wine afterwards as a stirrup-cup on our journey." And with a significant glance at Dumphy, Arthur Poinsett slipped Colonel Starbottle's arm deftly under his own, and actually marched off with that doughty warrior, a blushing, expanding, but not unwilling captive.
When the door closed Mr. Dumphy resumed his speech and action in a single expletive. What more he might have said is not known, for at the same moment he caught sight of his clerk, who had entered hastily at the exit of the others, but who now stood awed and abashed by Mr. Dumphy's passion. "Dash it all! what in dash are you dashingly doing here, dash you?"
"Sorry, sir," said the unlucky clerk; "but overhearing that gentleman say there was writing on the letter that you lost by which it might be identified, sir—we think we've found it—that is, we know where it is!"
"How?" said Dumphy, starting up eagerly.
"When the shock came that afternoon," continued the clerk, "the express bag for Sacramento and Marysville had just been taken out by the expressman, and was lying on top of the waggon. The horses started to run at the second shock, and the bag fell and was jammed against a lamp-post in front of our window, bursting open as it did so and spilling some letters and papers on the side-walk. One of our night watchmen helped the expressman pick up the scattered letters, and picked up among them a plain yellow envelope with no address but the name of Gabriel Conroy written in pencil across the end. Supposing it had dropped from some package in the express bag, he put it back again in the bag. When you asked about a blank envelope missing from your desk, he did not connectit with the one he had picked up, forthathad writing on it. We sent to the express office just now, and found that they had stamped it, and forwarded it to Conroy at One Horse Gulch, just as they had always done with his letters sent to our care. That's the way of it. Daresay it's there by this time, in his hands, sir, all right!"
Gabriel's petition on behalf of Mr. Hamlin was promptly granted by the sheriff. The waggon was at once put into requisition to convey the wounded man—albeit screaming and protesting—to the Grand Conroy Hotel, where, in company with his faithful henchman, he was left, to all intents a free man, and a half an hour later a demented one, tossing in a burning fever.
Owing to the insecure condition of the county jail at One Horse Gulch, and possibly some belief in the equal untrustworthiness of the people, the sheriff conducted his prisoner, accompanied by Olly, to Wingdam. Nevertheless, Olly's statement of the changed condition of public sentiment, or rather its pre-occupation with a calamity of more absorbing interest, was in the main correct. The news of the recapture of Gabriel by his legal guardian awoke no excitement nor comment. More than this, there was a favourable feeling toward the prisoner. The action of the Vigilance Committee had been unsuccessful, and had terminated disastrously to the principal movers therein. It is possible that the morality of their action was involved in their success. Somehow the whole affair had not resulted to the business interests of the Gulch. The three most prominent lynchers were dead—and clearly in error! Theprisoner, who was still living, was possibly in the right. TheSilverpolis Messenger, which ten days before had alluded to the "noble spectacle of a free people outraged in their holiest instincts, appealing to the first principles of Justice and Order, and rallying as a single man to their support," now quietly buried the victims and their motives from the public eye beneath the calm statement that they met their fate "while examining the roof of the Court House with a view to estimate the damage caused by the first shock of the earthquake." TheBannerfavoured the same idea a little less elegantly, and suggested ironically that hereafter "none but experts should be allowed to go foolin' round the statue of Justice." I trust that the intelligent reader will not accuse me of endeavouring to cast ridicule upon the general accuracy of spontaneous public emotion, nor the infallibility of the true democratic impulse, which (I beg to quote from theMessenger), "in the earliest ages of our history enabled us to resist legalised aggression, and take the reins of government into our own hands," or (I now refer to the glowing language of theBanner), "gave us the right to run the machine ourselves and boss the job." And I trust that the reader will observe in this passing recognition of certain inconsistencies in the expression and action of these people, only the fidelity of a faithful chronicler, and no intent of churlish criticism nor moral or political admonition, which I here discreetly deprecate and disclaim.
Nor was there any opposition when Gabriel, upon the motion of Lawyer Maxwell, was admitted to bail pending the action of the Grand Jury, nor any surprise when Mr. Dumphy's agent and banker came forward as his bondsman for the sum of fifty thousand dollars. By one of those strange vicissitudes in the fortunes of mining speculation, this act by Mr. Dumphy was looked upon as an evidence of his trust in the future of the unfortunate mine of whichGabriel had been original locator and superintendent, and under that belief the stock rallied slightly. "It was a mighty sharp move of Pete Dumphy's bailin' thet Gabe, right in face of that there 'dropped lead' in his busted-up mine! Oh, you've got to set up all night to get any points to showhim!" And, to their mutual surprise, Mr. Dumphy found himself more awe-inspiring than ever at One Horse Gulch, and Gabriel found himself a free man, with a slight popular flavour of martyrdom about him.
As he still persistently refused to enter again upon the premises which he had deeded to his wife on the day of the murder, temporary lodgings were found for him and Olly at the Grand Conroy Hotel. And here Mrs. Markle, although exhibiting to Lawyer Maxwell the greatest concern in Gabriel's trouble, by one of those inconsistencies of the sex which I shall not attempt to explain, treated the unfortunate accused with a degree of cold reserve that was as grateful, I fear, to Gabriel, as it was unexpected. Indeed, I imagine that if the kind-hearted widow had known the real comfort and assurance that the exasperating Gabriel extracted from her first cold and constrained greeting, she would have spent less of her time in consultation with Maxwell regarding his defence. But perhaps I am doing a large-hearted and unselfish sex a deep injustice. So I shall content myself with transcribing part of a dialogue which took pace between them at the Grand Conroy.
Mrs. Markle (loftily, and regarding the ceiling with cold abstraction): "We can't gin ye here, Mister Conroy, the French style and attention ye're kinder habitooal to in your own house on the Hill, bein' plain folks and mounting ways. But we know our place, and don't reckon to promise the comforts of a home! Wot with lookin' arter forty reg'lar and twenty-five transient—ef I don't happen to see ye much myself, Mr. Conroy, ye'll understand. Ef ye ringthet there bell one o' the help will be always on hand. Yer lookin' well, Mr. Conroy. And bizness, I reckon" (the reader will here observe a ladylike ignoring of Gabriel's special trouble), "ez about what it allers waz, though judging from remarks of transients, it's dull!"
Gabriel (endeavouring to conceal a large satisfaction under the thin glowing of conventional sentiment): "Don't let me nor Olly put ye out a cent, Mrs. Markle—a change bein' ordered by Olly's physicians—and variety bein', so to speak, the spice o' life! And ye're lookin' well, Mrs. Markle; that ez" (with a sudden alarm at the danger of compliment), "so to speak, ez peart and strong-handed ez ever! And how's thet little Manty o' yours gettin' on? Jist how it was thet me and Olly didn't get to see ye before ez mighty queer! Times and times ag'in" (with shameless mendacity) "hez me and thet child bin on the p'int o' coming, and suthin' hez jest chipped in and interfered!"
Mrs. Markle (with freezing politeness): "You do me proud! I jest dropped in ez a matter o' not bein' able allers to trust to help. Good night, Mister Conroy. I hope I see you well! Ye kin jest" (retiring with matronly dignity), "ye kin jest touch onto that bell thar, if ye're wantin' anything, and help'll come to ye! Good-night!"
Olly (appearing a moment later at the door of Gabriel's room, truculent and suspicious): "Afore I'd stand thar—chirpin' with thet crockidill—and you in troubil, and not knowin' wot's gone o' July—I'd pizen myself!"
Gabriel (blushing to the roots of his hair, and conscience-stricken to his inmost soul): "It's jest passin' the time o' day, Olly, with old friends—kinder influencin' the public sentyment and the jury. Thet's all. It's the advice o' Lawyer Maxwell, ez ye didn't get to hear, I reckon,—thet's all!"
But Gabriel's experience in the Grand Conroy Hotel wasnot, I fear, always as pleasant. A dark-faced, large-featured woman, manifestly in mourning, and as manifestly an avenging friend of the luckless deceased, in whose taking off Gabriel was supposed to be so largely instrumental, presently appeared at the Grand Conroy Hotel, waiting the action of the Grand Jury. She was accompanied by a dark-faced elderly gentleman, our old friend Don Pedro—she being none other than the unstable-waisted Manuela of Pacific Street—and was, I believe, in the opinion of One Horse Gulch, supposed to be charged with convincing and mysterious evidence against Gabriel Conroy. The sallow-faced pair had a way of meeting in the corridors of the hotel and conversing in mysterious whispers in a tongue foreign to One Horse Gulch and to Olly, strongly suggestive of revenge and concealedstilettos, that was darkly significant! Happily, however, for Gabriel, he was presently relieved from their gloomy espionage by the interposition of a third party—Sal Clark. That individual, herself in the deepest mourning, and representing the deceased in his holiest affections, it is scarcely necessary to say at once resented the presence of the strangers. The two women glared at each other at the public table, and in a chance meeting in the corridor of the hotel.
"In the name of God, what have we here in this imbecile and forward creature, and why is this so and after this fashion?" asked Manuela of Don Pedro.
"Of a verity, I know not," replied Don Pedro, "it is most possibly a person visited of God!—a helpless being of brains. Peradventure, a person filled withaguardienteor the whisky of the Americans. Have a care, little one, thou smallest Manuela" (she weighed at least three hundred pounds), "that she does thee no harm!"
Meanwhile Miss Sarah Clark relieved herself to Mrs. Markle in quite as positive language. "Ef that blackmulattar and that dried-up old furriner reckons they're going to monopolise public sentyment in this yer way they're mighty mistaken. Ef thar ever was a shameless piece et's thet old woman—and, goodness knows, the man's a poor critter enyway! Ef anybody's goin' to take the word of that woman under oath, et's mor'n Sal Clark would do—that's all! Who ez she—enyway? I never heard her name mentioned afore!"
And ridiculous as it may seem to the unprejudiced reader, this positive expression and conviction of Miss Clark, like all positive convictions, was not without its influence on the larger unimpanelled Grand Jury of One Horse Gulch, and, by reflection, at last on the impanelled jury itself.
"When you come to consider, gentlemen," said one of those dangerous characters—a sagacious, far-seeing juror—"when you come to consider that the principal witness o' the prosecution and the people at the inquest don't know this yer Greaser woman, and kinder throws off her testimony, and the prosecution don't seem to agree, it looks mighty queer. And I put it to you as far-minded men, if it ain't mighty queer? And this yer Sal Clark one of our own people."
An impression at once inimical to the new mistress and stranger, and favourable to the accused Gabriel, instantly took possession of One Horse Gulch.
Meanwhile the man who was largely responsible for this excitement and these conflicting opinions maintained a gravity and silence as indomitable and impassive as his alleged victim, then slumbering peacefully in the little cemetery on Round Hill. He conversed but little even with his counsel and friend, Lawyer Maxwell, and received with his usual submissiveness and gentle deprecatoriness the statement of that gentleman that Mr. Dumphy had already bespoken the services of one of the most prominentlawyers of San Francisco—Mr. Arthur Poinsett—to assist in the defence. When Maxwell added that Mr. Poinsett had expressed a wish to hold his first consultation with Gabriel privately, the latter replied with his usual simplicity, "I reckon I've nowt to say to him ez I hain't said to ye, but it's all right!"
"Then I'll expect you over to my office at eleven to-morrow?" asked Maxwell.
"Thet's so," responded Gabriel, "though I reckon thet anything you and him might fix up to be dumped onto thet jury would be pleasin' and satisfactory to me."
At a few minutes of eleven the next morning Mr. Maxwell, in accordance with a previous understanding with Mr. Poinsett, put on his hat and left his office in the charge of that gentleman that he might receive and entertain Gabriel in complete privacy and confidence. As Arthur sat there alone, fine gentleman as he was and famous in his profession, he was conscious of a certain degree of nervousness that galled his pride greatly. He was about to meet the man whose cherished sister six years ago he had stolen! Such, at least, Arthur felt was Gabriel's opinion.Hehad no remorse nor consciousness of guilt or wrongdoing in that act. But in looking at the fact in his professional habit of viewing both sides of a question, he made this allowance for the sentiment of the prosecution, and putting himself, in his old fashion, in the position of his opponent, he judged that Gabriel might consistently exhibit some degree of indignation at their first meeting. That there was, however, really anymoralquestion involved, he did not believe. The girl, Grace Conroy, had gone with him readily, after a careful and honourable statement of the facts of her situation, and Gabriel's authority or concern in any subsequent sentimental complication he utterly denied. That he, Arthur, had acted in a most honourable,high-minded, and even weakly generous fashion towards Grace, that he had obeyed her frivolous whims as well as her most reasonable demands, that he had gone back to Starvation Camp on a hopeless quest just to satisfy her, that everything had happened exactly as he had predicted, and that when he had returned to her he found thatshehad desertedhim—these—these were the facts that were incontrovertible! Arthur was satisfied that he had been honourable and even generous—he was quite convinced that this very nervousness that he now experienced, was solely the condition of a mind too sympathetic even with the feelings of an opponent in affliction. "I mustnotgive way to this absurd Quixotic sense of honour," said this young gentleman to himself, severely.
Nevertheless, at exactly eleven o'clock, when the staircase creaked with the strong steady tread of the giant Gabriel, Arthur felt a sudden start to his pulse. There was a hesitating rap at the door—a rap that was so absurdly inconsistent with the previous tread on the staircase—as inconsistent as were all the mental and physical acts of Gabriel—that Arthur was amused and reassured. "Come in," he said, with a return of his old confidence, and the door opened to Gabriel, diffident and embarrassed.
"I was told by Lawyer Maxwell," said Gabriel slowly, without raising his eyes, and only dimly cognisant of the slight, strong, elegant figure before him—"I was told that Mr. Arthur Poinsett reckoned to see me to-day at eleven o'clock—so I came. Be you Mr. Poinsett?" (Gabriel here raised his eyes)—"be you, eh?—God A'mighty!why, it's—eh?—why—I want to know!—it can't be!—yes, it is!" He stopped—the recognition was complete!
Arthur did not move. If he had expected an outburst from the injured man before him he was disappointed. Gabriel passed his hard palm vaguely and confusedly acrosshis forehead and through his hair, and lifted and put back behind his ears two tangled locks. And then, without heeding Arthur's proffered hand, yet without precipitation, anger, or indignation, he strode toward him, and asked calmly and quietly, as Arthur himself might have done, "Where is Grace?"
"I don't know," said Arthur, bluntly. "I have not known for years. I have never known her whereabouts, living or dead, since the day I left her at a logger's house to return to Starvation Camp to bring help toyou." (Arthur could not resist italicising the pronoun, nor despising himself for doing it when he saw that the full significance of his emphasis touched the man before him.) "She was gone when I returned; where, no one knew! I traced her to the Presidio, but there she had disappeared."
Gabriel raised his eyes to Arthur's. The impression of nonchalant truthfulness which Arthur's speech always conveyed to his hearer, an impression that he did not prevaricate because he was not concerned sufficiently in his subject, was further sustained by his calm, clear eyes. But Gabriel did not speak, and Arthur went on—
"She left the logger's camp voluntarily, of her own free will, and doubtless for some reason that seemed sufficient to her. She abandoned me—if I may so express myself—left my care, relieved me of the responsibility I held towards her relatives"—he continued, with the first suggestion of personal apology in his tones—"without a word of previous intimation. Possibly she might have got tired of waiting for me. I was absent two weeks. It was the tenth day after my departure that she left the logger's hut."
Gabriel put his hand in his pocket and deliberately drew out the precious newspaper slip he had once shown to Olly. "Then thet thar 'Personal' wozent writ by you,and thet P. A. don't stand for Philip Ashley?" asked Gabriel, with a hopeless dejection in his tone.
Arthur glanced quickly over the paper, and smiled. "I never saw this before," he said. "What made you thinkIdid it?" he asked curiously.
"Because July—my wife that was—said that P. A. meant you," said Gabriel, simply.
"Oh!shesaid so, did she?" said Arthur, still smiling.
"She did. And ef it wasn't you, who was it?"
"I really don't know," returned Arthur, carelessly; "possibly it might have been herself. From what I have heard of your wife, I think this might be one, and perhaps the most innocent, of her various impostures."
Gabriel cast down his eyes and for a moment was gravely silent. Then the look of stronger inquiry and intelligence that he had worn during the interview faded utterly from his face, and he began again in his old tone of apology. "For answerin' all my questions, I'm obliged to ye, Mr. Ashley, and it's right good in ye to remember ol' times, and ef I hev often thought hard on ye, ye'll kinder pass that by ez the nat'rel allowin's of a man ez was worried about a sister ez hasn't been heerd from sens she left with ye. And ye mustn't think this yer meetin' was o' my seekin'. I kinder dropped in yer," he added wearily, "to see a man o' the name o' Poinsett. He allowed to be yer at eleving o'clock—mebbee it's airly yet—mebbee I've kinder got wrong o' the place!" and he glanced apologetically around the room.
"Myname is Poinsett," said Arthur, smiling, "the name of Philip Ashley, by which you knew me, was merely the one I assumed when I undertook the long overland trip." He said this in no tone of apology or even explanation, but left the impression on Gabriel's mind that a change of name, like a change of dress, was part of the outfit of agentleman emigrant. And looking at the elegant young figure before him, it seemed exceedingly plausible. "It was as Arthur Poinsett, the San Francisco lawyer, that I made this appointment with you, and it is now as your old friend Philip Ashley that I invite your confidence, and ask you to tell me frankly the whole of this miserable business. I have come to help you, Gabriel, for your own—for your sister's sake. And I think I can do it!" He held out his hand again, and this time not in vain; with a sudden frank gesture it was taken in both of Gabriel's, and Arthur felt that the greatest difficulty he had anticipated in his advocacy of Gabriel's cause had been surmounted.
"He has told me the whole story, I think," said Arthur, two hours later, when Maxwell returned and found his associate thoughtfully sitting beside the window alone. "And I believe it. He is as innocent of this crime as you or I. Of that I have always been confident. How far he is accessoryafterthe fact—I know he is not accessorybefore—is another question. But his story, that to me is perfectly convincing, I am afraid won't do before a jury and the world generally. It involves too much that is incredible, and damning to him secondarily if believed. We must try something else. As far as I can see, really, it seems that his own suggestion of a defence, as you told it to me, has more significance in it than the absurdity you only saw. We must admit the killing, and confine ourselves to showing excessive provocation. I know something of the public sentiment here, and the sympathies of the average jury, and if Gabriel should tell them the story he has just told me, they would hang him at once! Unfortunately for him, the facts show a complication of property interests and impostures on the part of his wife, of which he is perfectly innocent, and which are not really the motive of the murder, but which the jury would instantly accept as a sufficientmotive. We must fight, understand, this very story from the outset; you will find it to be the theory of the prosecution; but if we can keep him silent it cannot be proved except by him. The facts are such that if he had really committed the murder he could have defied prosecution, but through his very stupidity and blind anxiety to shield his wife, he has absolutely fixed the guilt upon himself."
"Then you don't think that Mrs. Conroy is the culprit?" asked Maxwell.
"No," said Arthur; "she is capable, but not culpable. The real murderer has never been suspected nor his presence known to One Horse Gulch. But I must see him again, and Olly, and you must hunt up a Chinaman—one Ah Fe—whom Gabriel tells me brought him the note, and who is singularly enough missing, now that he is wanted."
"But you can't use a Chinaman's evidence before a jury?" interrupted Maxwell.
"Not directly; but I can find Christian Caucasians who would be willing to swear to the facts he supplied them with. I shall get at the facts in a few days—and then, my dear fellow," continued Arthur, laying his hand familiarly and patronisingly on the shoulder of his senior, "and then you and I will go to work to see how we can get rid of them."
When Gabriel recounted the events of the day to Olly, and described his interview with Poinsett, she became furiously indignant. "And did that man mean to say he don't know whether Gracey is livin' or dead? And he pertendin' to hev bin her bo?"
"In coorse," explained Gabriel; "ye disremember, Olly, that Gracey never hez let on tome, her own brother, whar she ez, and she wouldn't be going to tell a stranger. Thar's them personals as she never answered!"
"Mebbe she didn't want to speak to him ag'in," said Olly,fiercely, with a toss of her curls. "I'd like to know what he'd bin' sayin' to her—like his impudence. Enny how he ought to hev found her out, and she his sweetheart! Why didn't he go right off to the Presidio? What did he come back for? Not find her, indeed! Why, Gabe, do you suppose as July won't findyouout soon—why, I bet anythin' she knows jest whar you are" (Gabriel trembled and felt an inward sinking), "and is on'y waitin' to come forward to the trial. And yer you are taken in ag'in and fooled by these yer lawyers!—you old Gabe, you. Let me git at thet Philip—Ashley Poinsett—thet's all!"
Thus admonished by the practical-minded Olly, Gabriel retired precipitately to the secure fastnesses of Conroy's Hill, where, over a consolatory pipe in his deserted cabin, he gave himself up to reflections upon the uncertainty of the sex and the general vagaries of womanhood. At such times he would occasionally extend his wanderings to the gigantic pine tree which still towered pre-eminently above its fellows in ominous loneliness, and seated upon one of its outlying roots, would gently philosophise to himself regarding his condition, the vicissitudes of fortune, the awful prescience of Olly, and the beneficence of a Creator who permitted such awkward triviality and uselessness as was incarnate in himself to exist at all! Sometimes, following the impulse of habit, he would encroach abstractedly upon the limits of his own domain, and find himself under the shadow of his own fine house on the hill, from which, since that eventful parting with his wife, he had always rigidly withheld his foot. As soon as he would make this alarmingdiscovery, he would turn back in honourable delicacy and a slight sense of superstitious awe. Retreating from one of these involuntary incursions one day, in passing through an opening in a little thicket of "buckeye" near his house, he stumbled over a small workbasket lying in the withered grass, apparently mislaid or forgotten. Gabriel instantly recognised it as the property of his wife, and as quickly recalled the locality as one of her favourite resorts during the excessive mid-day heats. He hesitated and then passed on, and then stopped and returned again awkwardly and bashfully. To have touched any property of his wife's, after their separation, was something distasteful and impossible to Gabriel's sense of honour; to leave it there the spoil of any passing Chinaman, or the prey of the elements, was equally inconsistent with a certain respect which Gabriel had for his wife's weaknesses. He compromised by picking it up with the intention of sending it to Lawyer Maxwell, as his wife's trustee. But in doing this, to Gabriel's great alarm (for he would as soon have sacrificed the hand that held this treasure as to have exposed its contents in curiosity or suspicion), part of that multitudinous contents overflowed and fell on the ground, and he was obliged to pick them up and replace them. One of them was a baby's shirt—so small it filled the great hand that grasped it. In Gabriel's emigrant experience, as the frequent custodian and nurse of the incomplete human animal, he was somewhat familiar with those sacred, mummy-like enwrappings usually unknown to childless men, and he recognised it at once.
He did not replace it in the basket, but, with a suffused cheek and an increased sense of his usual awkwardness, stuffed it into the pocket of his blouse. Nor did he send the basket to Lawyer Maxwell, as he had intended, and in fact omitted any allusion to it in his usual account to Olly of his daily experience. For the next two days he waspeculiarly silent and thoughtful, and was sharply reprimanded by Olly for general idiocy and an especial evasion of some practical duties.
"Yer's them lawyers hez been huntin' ye to come over and examine that there Chinaman, Ah Fe, ez is jest turned up ag'in, and you ain't no whar to be found; and Lawyer Maxwell sez it's a most important witness. And whar' bouts was ye found? Down in the Gulch, chirpin' and gossipin' with that Arkansas family, and totin' round Mrs. Welch's baby. And you a growed man, with a fammerly of yer own to look after. I wonder ye ain't got moresabe!—prancin' round in this yer shiftless way, and you on trial, and accused o' killin' folks. Yer a high ole Gabe—rentin' yerself out fur a dry nuss for nothin'!"
Gabriel (colouring and hastily endeavouring to awaken Olly's feminine sympathies): "It waz the powerfullest, smallest baby—ye oughter get to see it, Olly! 'Tain't bigger nor a squirrel—on'y two weeks old yesterday!"
Olly (outwardly scornful, but inwardly resolving to visit the phenomenon next week): "Don't stand yawpin' here, but waltz down to Lawyer Maxwell and see that Chinaman."
Gabriel reached the office of Lawyer Maxwell just as that gentleman and Arthur Poinsett were rising from a long, hopeless, and unsatisfactory examination of Ah Fe. The lawyers had hoped to be able to establish the fact of Gabriel's remoteness from the scene of the murder by some corroborating incident or individual that Ah Fe could furnish in support of the detailed narrative he had already given. But it did not appear that any Caucasian had been encountered or met by Ah Fe at the time of his errand. And Ah Fe's memory of the details he had already described was apparently beginning to be defective; it was evident nothing was to be gained from him even if he had beenconstituted a legal witness. And then, more than all, he was becoming sullen!
"We are afraid that we haven't made much out of your friend, Ah Fe," said Arthur, taking Gabriel's hand. "You might try ifyoucan revive his memory, but it looks doubtful."
Gabriel gazed at Ah Fe intently—possibly because he was the last person who had spoken to his missing wife. Ah Fe returned the gaze, discharging all expression from his countenance, except a slight suggestion of the habitual vague astonishment always seen in the face of a newborn infant. Perhaps this peculiar expression, reminding Gabriel as it did of the phenomenon in the Welch family, interested him. But the few vague wandering questions he put were met by equally vague answers. Arthur rose in some impatience; Lawyer Maxwell wiped away the smile that had been lingering around his mouth. The interview was ended.
Arthur and Maxwell passed down the narrow stairway arm in arm. Gabriel would have followed them with Ah Fe, but turning toward that Mongolian, he was alarmed by a swift spasm of expression that suddenly convulsed Ah Fe's face. He winked both his eyes with the velocity of sheet-lightning, nodded his head with frightful rapidity, and snapped and apparently dislocated every finger on his right hand. Gabriel gazed at him in open-mouthed wonder.
"All litee!" said Ah Fe, looking intently at Gabriel.
"Which?" asked Gabriel.
"All litee! You shabbee 'all litee!'Shesay 'all litee.'"
"Who'sshe?" asked Gabriel, in sudden alarm.
"You lifee!—shabbee?—Missee Conloy! She likee you—shabbee? Me likee you!—shabbee? Miss Conloy she say 'all litee!' You shabbee shelliff?"
"Which?" said Gabriel.
"Shelliff! Man plenty chokee bad man!"
"Sheriff, I reckon," suggested Gabriel, with great gravity.
"Um! Shelliff. Mebbe you shabbee him bimeby. He chokee bad man. Much chokee. Chokee like hellee!He no chokee you.No. Shabbee? She say 'shelliff no chokee you.' Shabbee?"
"I see," said Gabriel, significantly.
"She say," continued Ah Fe, with gasping swiftness, "she say you talkee too much. She say me talkee too much. She say Maxwellee talkee too much. All talkee too much. She say 'no talkee!' Shabbee? She say 'ash up!' Shabbee? She say 'dly up!' Shabbee? She say 'bimeby plenty talkee—bimeby all litee!' Shabbee?"
"But whar ez she—whar kin I git to see her?" asked Gabriel.
Ah Fe's face instantly discharged itself of all expression. A wet sponge could not have more completely obliterated all pencilled outline of character or thought from his blank slate-coloured physiognomy than did Gabriel's simple question. He returned his questioner's glance with ineffable calmness and vacancy, patiently drew the long sleeves of his blouse still further over his varnished fingers, crossed them submissively and Orientally before him, and waited apparently for Gabriel to become again intelligible.
"Look yer," said Gabriel, with gentle persuasiveness, "ef it's the same to ye, you'd be doin' me a heap o' good ef you'd let on whar thet July—thet Mrs. Conroy ez. Bein' a man ez in his blindness bows down to wood and stun, ye ain't supposed to allow fur a Christian's feelings. But I put to ye ez a far-minded brethren—a true man and a man whatsoever his colour that it's a square thing fur ye to allow to me whar thet woman ez ez my relation by marriageez hidin'! Allowin' it's one o' my idols—I axes you as a brother Pagan—whar ez she?"
A faint, flickering smile of pathetic abstraction and simplicity, as of one listening to far-off but incomprehensible music stole over Ah Fe's face. Then he said kindly, gently, but somewhat vaguely and unsatisfactorily—
"Me no shabbee Melican man. Me washee shirtee! dollah and hap dozen!"
The day of the trial was one of exacting and absorbing interest to One Horse Gulch. Long before ten o'clock the Court-room, and even the halls and corridors of the lately rehabilitated Court House, were thronged with spectators. It is only fair to say that by this time the main points at issue were forgotten. It was only remembered that some of the first notabilities of the State had come up from Sacramento to attend the trial; that one of the most eminent lawyers in San Francisco had been engaged for the prisoner at a fee variously estimated from fifty to one hundred thousand dollars, and that the celebrated Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou was to assist in the prosecution; that a brisk duel of words, and it was confidently hoped, a later one of pistols, would grow out of this forensic encounter; that certain disclosures affecting men and women of high social standing were to be expected; and, finally, that in some mysterious way a great political and sectional principle (Colonel Starbottle was from the South and Mr. Poinsett from the North) was to be evolved and upheldduring the trial—these were the absorbing fascinations to One Horse Gulch.
At ten o'clock Gabriel, accompanied by his counsel, entered the Court-room, followed by Colonel Starbottle. Judge Boompointer, entering at the same moment, bowed distantly to Arthur, and familiarly to Colonel Starbottle. In hisotiumoff the bench, he had been chaffed by the District Attorney, and had lost large sums at play with Colonel Starbottle. Nevertheless he was a trifle uneasy under the calmly critical eyes of the famous young advocate from San Francisco. Arthur was too wise to exhibit his fastidiousness before the Court; nevertheless, Judge Boompointer was dimly conscious that he would on that occasion have preferred that the Clerk who sat below him had put on a cleaner shirt, and himself refrained from taking off his cravat and collar, as was his judicial habit on the Wingdam circuit. There was some slight prejudice on the part of the panel to this well-dressed young lawyer, which they were pleased to specify and define more particularly as his general "airiness." Seeing which, Justice, on the bench, became more dignified, and gazed severely at the panel and at Arthur.
In the selection of the jury there was some difficulty; it was confidently supposed that the prisoner's counsel would challenge the array on the ground of the recent Vigilance excitement, but public opinion was disappointed when the examination of the defence was confined to trivial and apparently purposeless inquiry into the nativity of the several jurors. A majority of those accepted by the defence were men of Southern birth and education. Colonel Starbottle, who, as a representative of the peculiar chivalry of the South, had always adopted this plan himself, in cases where his client was accused of assault and battery, or even homicide, could not in respect to hisfavourite traditions object to it. But when it was found that there were only two men of Northern extraction on the jury, and that not a few of them had been his own clients, Colonel Starbottle thought he had penetrated the theory of the defence.
I regret that Colonel Starbottle's effort, admirably characterised by theBanneras "one of the most scathing and Junius-like gems of legal rhetoric ever known to the Californian Bar," has not been handed down to mein extenso. Substantially, however, it appeared that Colonel Starbottle had never before found himself in "so peculiar, so momentous, so—er—delicate a position. A position, sir—er—er—gentlemen, fraught with the deepest social, professional—er—er—he should not hesitate to say, upon his own personal responsibility, a position of the deepest political significance! Colonel Starbottle was aware that this statement might be deprecated—nay, evenassailedby some. But he did not retract that statement. Certainly not in the presence of that jury, in whose intelligent faces he saw—er—er—er—justice—inflexible justice!—er—er—mingled and—er—mixed with—with chivalrous instinct, and suffused with the characteristic—er—er—glow of—er—er—!" (I regret to add that at this supreme moment, as the Colonel was lightly waving away with his fat right hand the difficulties of rhetoric, a sepulchral voice audible behind the jury suggested "Robinson County whisky" as the origin of the phenomena the Colonel hesitated to describe. The judge smiled blandly and directed the deputy sheriff to preserve order. The deputy obeyed the mandate by looking over into the crowd behind the jury, and saying, in an audible tone, "You'd better dry up thar, Joe White, or git out o' that!" and the Colonel, undismayed, proceeded.) "He well understood the confidence placed by the defence in these gentlemen. He had reason to believe that anattempt would be made to show that this homicide was committed in accordance with certain—er—er—principles held by honourable men—that the act was retributive, and in defence of an invasion of domestic rights and the sanctity of wedlock. But he should show them its fallacy. He should show them that only a base pecuniary motive influenced the prisoner. He should show them—er—er—that the accused had placed himself, firstly, by his antecedent acts, and, secondly, by the manner of the later act, beyond the sympathies of honourable men. He should show them a previous knowledge of certain—er—er—indiscretions on the part of the prisoner's wife, and a condonation by the prisoner of those indiscretions, that effectually debarred the prisoner from the provisions of the code; he should show an inartistic, he must say, even on his own personal responsibility, a certain ungentlemanliness, in the manner of the crime that refused to clothe it with the—er—er—generous mantle of chivalry. The crime of which the prisoner was accused might have—er—er—been committed by a Chinaman or a nigger. Colonel Starbottle did not wish to be misunderstood. It was not in the presence of—er—Beauty—" (the Colonel paused, drew out his handkerchief, and gracefully waved it in the direction of the dusky Manuela and the truculent Sal—both ladies acknowledging the courtesy as an especial and isolated tribute, and exchanging glances of the bitterest hatred)—"it is not, gentlemen, in the presence of an all-sufficient and enthralling sex that I would seek to disparage their influence with man. But I shall prove that this absorbing—er—er—passion, this—er—er—delicious—er—er—fatal weakness, that rules the warlike camp, the—er—er—stately palace, as well as the—er—er—cabin of the base-born churl, never touched the calculating soul of Gabriel Conroy! Look at him, gentlemen! Look at him, and say upon your oaths,upon your experience as men of gallantry, if he is a man to sacrifice himself for a woman. Look at him, and say truly, as men personally responsible for their opinions, if he is a man to place himself in a position of peril through the blandishments of—er—er—Beauty, or sacrifice himself upon the—er—er—altar of Venus!"
Every eye was turned upon Gabriel. And certainly at that moment he did not bear any striking resemblance to a sighing Amintor or a passionate Othello. His puzzled, serious face, which had worn a look of apologetic sadness, was suffused at this direct reference of the prosecution; and the long, heavy lower limbs, which he had diffidently tucked away under his chair to reduce the elevation of his massive knees above the ordinary level of one of the court-room chairs, retired still further. Finding himself, during the Colonel's rhetorical pause, still the centre of local observation, he slowly drew from his pocket a small comb, and began awkwardly to comb his hair, with an ineffective simulation of pre-occupation and indifference.
"Yes, sir," continued the Colonel, with that lofty forensic severity so captivating to the spectator, "you may comb yer hair" (hyar was the Colonel's pronunciation), "but yer can't comb it so as to make this intelligent jury believe that it is fresh from the hands of—er—er—Delilah."
The Colonel then proceeded to draw an exceedingly poetical picture of the murdered Ramirez—"a native, appealing to the sympathies of every Southern man, a native of the tropics, impulsive, warm, and peculiarly susceptible, as we all are, gentlemen, to the weaknesses of the heart." The Colonel "would not dwell further upon this characteristic of the deceased. There were within the sound of his voice, visible to the sympathising eyes of the jury, two beings who had divided his heart's holiest affections—their presence was more eloquent than words. Thisman," continued the Colonel, "a representative of one of our oldest Spanish families—a family that recalled the days of—er—er—the Cid and Don John—this man had been the victim at once of the arts of Mrs. Conroy and the dastardly fears of Gabriel Conroy; of the wiles of the woman and the stealthy steel of the man."