“A dead body?”
“Yes; but who’s it vos there vos no knowin’, it vos wrapped up in that manner. But I feels myself turn dreadful vhite, and I ses, ‘If this ere’s anythink wrong, I vashes my hands ov it, and you may do your dirty vork yourself.’ I hadn’t got the vords out afore this ’ere young man, as I thought at first vos Jim, caught me by the throat sudden, and threw me down on my knee. I ain’t a baby; but, lor’, I vos nothink in his grasp, though his hand vos as vite and as deliket as a young lady’s. ‘Now, you just look ’ere,’ he says; and I looked, as vell as I could, vith my eyes a-startin’ out ov of my head in cosekence of bein’ just upon the choke, ‘you see vot this is,’ and vith his left hand he takes a pistol out ov his pocket; ‘you refuse to do vot ve vant done, or you go for to be noisy or in any vay ill-conwenient, and it’s the last time as ever you’ll have the chance ov so doing. Get up,’ he says, as if I vos a dog; and I gets up, and I agrees to do vot he vants, for there vas that there devil in that young man’s hye, that I began to think it vos best not to go agen him.”
Here Mr. Withers paused for refreshment after his exertions, and blew his nose very deliberately on a handkerchief which, from its dilapidated condition, resembled a red cotton cabbagenet. Silence reigned throughout the crowded court, broken only by the scratching of the pen with which the counsel for the defence was taking notes of the evidence, and the fluttering of the leaves of the reporters’ pocketbooks, as they threw off page after page of flimsy paper.
The prisoner at the bar looked straight before him; the firmly-compressed lips had never once quivered, the golden fringed eyelashes had never drooped.
“Can you tell me,” said the counsel for the prosecution, “whether you have ever, since that night, seen this young man, who so closely resembled your old friend, Jim?”
“Never seen him since, to my knowledge”—there was a flutter in the crowded court, as if every spectator had simultaneously drawn a long breath—“till today.”
“Till today?” said the counsel. This time it was more than a flutter, it was a subdued murmur that ran through the listening crowd.
“Be good enough to say if you can see him at this present moment.”
“I can,” replied Mr. Withers. “That’s him! or my name ain’t vot I’ve been led to believe it is.” And he pointed with a dirty but decided finger at the prisoner at the bar.
The prisoner slightly elevated his arched eyebrows superciliously, as if he would say, “This is a pretty sort of witness to hang a man of my standing.”
“Be so good as to continue your story,” said the counsel.
“Vell, I does vot he tells me, and I lays the body, vith his ’elp, on the truck. ‘Now,’ he ses, ‘follow this ’ere old voman and do everythink vot she tells you, or you’ll find it considerably vorse for your future ’appiness;’ vith vich he slams the door upon me, the old un, and the truck, and I sees no more of ’im. Vell, I follows the old un through a lot o’ lanes and back slums, till ve leaves the town behind, and gets right out upon the ’eath; and ve crosses over the ’eath, till ve comes to vere it’s precious lonely, yet the hedge of the pathway like; and ’ere she tells me as ve’re to leave the body, and ’ere ve shifts it off the truck and lays it down upon the grass, vich it vas a-rainin’ ’eavens ’ard, and a-thunderin’ and a-lightnin’ like von o’clock. ‘And now,’ she ses, ‘vot you’ve got to do is to go back from vheres you come from, and lose no time about it; and take notice,’ she ses, ‘if ever you speaks or jabbers about this ’ere business, it’ll be the end of your jabberin’ in this world,’ vith vitch she looks at me like a old vitch as she vos, and points vith her skinny arm down the road. So I valks my chalks, but I doesn’t valk ’em very far, and presently I sees the old ’ag a-runnin’ back tovards the town as fast as ever she could tear. ‘Ho!’ I ses, ‘you are a nice lot, you are; but I’ll see who’s dead, in spite of you.’ So I crawls up to vere ve’d left the body, and there it vos sure enuff, but all uncovered now, the face a-starin’ up at the black sky, and it vos dressed, as far as I could make out, quite like a gentleman, all in black, but it vos so jolly dark I couldn’t see the face, vhen all of a sudden, vhile I vos a-kneelin’ down and lookin’ at it, there comes von of the longest flashes of lightnin’ as I ever remember, and in the blue light I sees the face plainer than I could have seen it in the day. I thought I should have fell down all of a heap. It vos Jim! Jim hisself, as I knowed as well as I ever knowed myself, dead at my feet! My first thought vos as how that young man as vos so like Jim had murdered him; but there vorn’t no marks of wiolence novheres about the body. Now, I hadn’t in my own mind any doubts as how it vos
