Bohemian Days Part 32

So excited were the sensibilities of Agnes that it seemed to her the old door-knockers squinted; the idle writing of boys on dead walls read with a hidden meaning; the shade-trees lazily shaking in summer seemed to whisper; if she looked down, there now and then appeared, moulded in the bricks of the pavement, a worn letter, or a pa.s.sing goose foot, the accident of the brickyard, but now become personal and intentional. The little babies, sporting in their carriages before some houses, leaned forward and looked as wise and awful as doctors in some occult diagnosis. Cartwheels, as they struck hard, articulated, "What, out!

Boo! boohoo!" Suns.h.i.+ne all slanted her way. Hucksters' cries sounded like constables' proclamation: "Oyez! oyez!"

With the perceptions, the reflections of Agnes were also startlingly alert. She seemed two or three unfortunate people at once. Now it was Lady Jane Grey going to the tower. Now it was Beatrice Cenci going to torture. Now it was Mary Magdalene going to the cross. At almost every house she felt a kindness speak for her, except mankind; a recollection of nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all forgotten now.

"_Via Crucia, Via Crucia_," her thorn-torn feet seemed to patter in the echoes of her ears and mind, and there arose upon her spirit the sternest curse of women, direful with G.o.d's own rage, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception."

Thus she reached the magistrate's little office, around the door of which was a little crowd of people, and Duff Salter led her in the private door to the residence itself. A cup of tea and a decanter of wine were on the table. The magistrate's wife knew her, and kissed her.

Then Agnes broke down and wept like a little child.

The magistrate was a lame man, and a deacon in Van de Lear's church, quite gray, and both prudent and austere, and making use of but few words, so that there was no way of determining his feelings on the case.

He took his place behind a plain table and opened court by saying,

"Who appears? Now!"

Duff Salter rose, the largest man in the court-room. His long beard covered his whole breast-bone; his fine intelligent features, clear, sober eyes, and hale, house-bleached skin, bore out the authority conceded to him in Kensington as a rich gentleman of the world.

"Mr. Magistrate," said Duff Salter, "this examination concerns the public and the ends of justice only as bears upon the death of the late citizens of Kensington, William Zane and Saylor Rainey. It is a preliminary examination only, and the person suspected by public gossip has not retained counsel. With your permission, as the executor of William Zane, I will conduct such part of the inquiry here as my duty toward the deceased, and my knowledge of the evidence, notwithstanding my frontier notions of law, suggest to me."

"You prosecute?" asked the magistrate, and added, "Yes, yes! I will!"

Calvin Van de Lear got up and bowed to the magistrate.

"Your Honor, my deep interest in Miss Agnes Wilt has driven me to leave the bedside of a dying parent to see that her interests are properly attended to in this case. Whenever she is concerned I am for the defence."

"Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "Salter, have you a witness?"

"Mike Donovan!" called Duff Salter.

A red-haired Irishman, with one eyebrow higher than the other, and scars on his face, walked into the alderman's court from the private room, and was sworn.

"Donovan," spoke Duff Salter, standing up, "relate the occurrences of a certain night when you rowed the prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certain other persons, from Treaty Island to an uncertain point in the River Delaware."

"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, rising. "It seems to me I have seen that fellow's face before. Donovan, hadn't you a wooden leg when last I saw you?"

"No doubt of it," answered the Irishman.

"Why haven't you got it on now?" cried Calvin, scowling.

"Because, yer riverence, me own legs was plenty good enough on this occasion."

"Now, now, I won't!" ordered the sententious little magistrate.

"Proceed with the narrative," cried Duff Salter, "and repeat no part of the conversation in that boat."

"It was a dark and lowering night," said the waterman, "as we swung loose from Traity Isle. I sat a little forward of the cintre, managing the oars. Mr. Andrew Zane was in the bow, on the watch for difficulties.

In the stern sat the boss, Mr. William Zane. Between him and me--G.o.d's rest to him!--sat the murdered gintleman, well-beloved Saylor Rainey!

The tide was running six miles an hour. We steered by the lights of Kinsington."

"Then you are confident," said Duff Salter, "that the whole length of the skiff separated William Zane from his son?"

"As confident, yer honor, as that the batteau had two inds. They niver were nearer, the one to the tother, than that, for the whole of the ixpidition. And scarcely one word did Mr. Andrew utter on the whole ov that b.l.o.o.d.y pa.s.sage."

"Say nothing, for the present, about any conversations," commanded Duff Salter, "but go on with the occurrences briefly."

"I had been a very little while, ye must understand me, gintlemen, in the imploy of thim two partners. After they entered the boat they spoke nothing at all, at all, for siveral minutes. It was all I could do wid the strong tide to keep the boat pinted for Kinsington, and I only noticed that Mr. Rainey comminced the conversation in a low tone of voice. Just at that time, or soon afterward, your Honor, a large vessel stood across our bow, going down stream in the night, and I put on all my strength, at Mr. William Zane's order, to cross in front of her, and did so. I was so afraid the s.h.i.+p would take us under that I put my whole attintion to my task, not daring to disobey so positive a boss as Mr.

Zane, though it was agin my judgment, indade."

All in the court and outside the door and windows were giving strict attention. Even Andrew Zane, whose face had been rather sullen, listened with a pale spot on his cheeks.

"Go on," said Duff Salter gently. "You relate it very well."

"As we had cleared the s.h.i.+p, gintlemen, I paused an instant to wipe the sweat from my brows, though it was a cold night, for I was quite spint.

I then perceived that Mr. Rainey and the master were disputing and raising their voices higher and higher, and what surprised me most of all, your Honor, was the unusual firmness of Mr. Rainey, who was ginerally very obedient to the boss. He faced the boss, and would not take his orders, and I heard him once exclaim: 'Shame on you, sir; he is your son!'"

"Stop! stop!" cried Duff Salter. "You were not to repeat conversations.

What next?"

"In the twinklin' of an eye," resumed the witness, "the masther had sazed his partner by the throat and called him a villain. They both stood up in the boat, the masther's hand still in Mr. Rainey's collar, and for an instant Mr. Rainey shook himself loose and cried--"

"Not a word!" exclaimed Duff Salter. "What was _done_?"

"Mr. Rainey cried out something, all at once. The masther fetched a terrible oath and fell back upon his seat. 'You a.s.sisted in this villainy!' he shouted. They clinched, and I saw something s.h.i.+ne dimly in Mr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of horror, and the boat swung round abruptly on the blade of the other, and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther's grip, fell overboard in the dark night."

Nothing was said by any person in the court except a suppressed "Bah!"

from Calvin Van de Lear.

"Silence! Order! I won't!" exclaimed the lame magistrate, rising from his seat. "Now! Go on!"

"I dropped both oars in me terror, and one of them floated away in the dark. We all stood up in the boat. 'My G.o.d!' exclaimed the masther, 'what have I done?' As quick as the beating of my heart he placed the pistol at his own head. I saw the flash and heard the report. Mr.

William Zane fell overboard."

There was a shudder of horror for a moment, and then a voice outside the window, hoa.r.s.e and cheery, shouted to the outer crowd, "Andrew is innocent! Three cheers for Andrew Zane!"

The people in and out of the warm and densely-pressed office simultaneously gave cheers, calling others to the scene, and the old magistrate, lame as he was, arose and looked happy.

"No arrests!" he cried. "Right enough! Good! Now, attention!"

But Andrew Zane kept his seat with an expression of obstinacy, and glared at Calvin Van de Lear, who was trembling with rage.

"Well got up, on my word!" exclaimed Calvin. "Who is this fellow?"

"Go on and finish your story!" commanded Duff Salter.

"G.o.d forgive Mike Donovan, your Honor!" continued the witness. "I'm afraid if Mr. William Zane had been the only man overboard I wouldn't have risked me life. He was a hard, overbearin' masther. But I thought of his poor son, standin' paralyzed-like, and the kind Mr. Rainey drownin' in the wintry water, and I jumped down in the dark flood to rescue one or both. From that day to this, the two partners I never saw.

It was months before I saw America at all, or the survivin' okkepant of the boat."

"You may explain how that came to be," intimated Duff Salter, grimly superintending the court.

"Well, sir! As I dived from the skiff my head encountered a solid something which made me see a thousand flashes av lightning in one second. I was so stunned that I had only instinct--I belave ye call it that--to throw my ar-rum around the murthering object and hold like death. Ye know, judge, how drownin' men will hold to straws. That straw, yer Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin' through the water. It was, I found out afterward, one of the pieces which had wedged the s.h.i.+p on the Marine Railway, where she had been gettin' repaired, and she comin' off hurriedly about dusk, had not been loosened from her. I raised my voice by a despairin' effort, and screamed 'Help! help!' When I came to I was on an Austrian merchant s.h.i.+p, bound to Wilmington, North Carolina, for naval stores, and then to Trieste. The blow of the spar had given me a slight crack av the skull."