On the third day after Maurice Gerald became an inmate of the military
prison the fever had forsaken him, and he no longer talked incoherently.
On the fourth he was almost restored to his health and strength. The
fifth was appointed for his trial!
This haste--that elsewhere would have been considered indecent--was
thought nothing of in Texas; where a man may commit a capital offence,
be tried, and hanged within the short space of four-and-twenty hours!
His enemies, who were numerous, for some reason of their own, insisted
upon despatch: while his friends, who were few, could urge no good
reason against it.
Among the populace there was the usual clamouring for prompt and speedy
justice; fortified by that exciting phrase, old as the creation itself:
"that the blood of the murdered man was calling from the ground for
vengeance."
The advocates of an early trial were favoured by a fortuitous
circumstance. The judge of the Supreme Court chanced just then to be
going his circuit; and the days devoted to clearing the calendar at Fort
Inge, had been appointed for that very week.
There was, therefore, a sort of necessity, that the case of Maurice
Gerald, as of the other suspected murderers, should be tried within a
limited time.
As no one objected, there was no one to ask for a postponement; and it
stood upon the docket for the day in question--the fifteenth of the
month.
The accused might require the services of a legal adviser. There was no
regular practitioner in the place: as in these frontier districts the
gentlemen of the long robe usually travel in company with the Court; and
the Court had not yet arrived. For all that, a lawyer had appeared: a
"counsellor" of distinction; who had come all the way from San Antonio,
to conduct the case. As a volunteer he had presented himself!
It may have been generosity on the part of this gentleman, or an eye to
Congress, though it was said that gold, presented by fair fingers, had
induced him to make the journey.
When it rains, it rains. The adage is true in Texas as regards the
elements; and on this occasion it was true of the lawyers.
The day before that appointed for the trial of the mustanger, a second
presented himself at Fort Inge, who put forward his claim to be upon the
side of the prisoner.
This gentleman had made a still longer journey than he of San Antonio; a
voyage, in fact: since he had crossed the great Atlantic, starting from
the metropolis of the Emerald Isle. He had come for no other purpose
than to hold communication with the man accused of having committed a
murder!
It is true, the errand that had brought him did not anticipate this; and
the Dublin solicitor was no little astonished when, after depositing his
travelling traps under the roof of Mr Oberdoffer's hostelry, and making
inquiry about Maurice Gerald, he was told that the young Irishman was
shut up in the guard-house.
Still greater the attorney's astonishment on learning the cause of his
incarceration.
"Fwhat! the son of a Munsther Gerald accused of murdher! The heir of
Castle Ballagh, wid its bewtiful park and demesne. Fwy, I've got the
papers in my portmantyee here. Faugh-a-ballagh! Show me the way to
him!"
Though the "Texan" Boniface was inclined to consider his recently
arrived guest entitled to a suspicion of lunacy, he assented to his
request; and furnished him with a guide to the guard-house.
If the Irish attorney was mad, there appeared to be method in his
madness. Instead of being denied admittance to the accused criminal, he
was made welcome to go in and out of the military prison--as often as it
seemed good to him.
Some document he had laid before the eyes of the major-commandant, had
procured him this privilege; at the same time placing him _en rapport_,
in a friendly way, with the Texan "counsellor."
The advent of the Irish attorney at such a crisis gave rise to much
speculation at the Port, the village, and throughout the settlement.
The bar-room of the "Rough and Ready" was rife with
conjecturers--_quidnuncs_ they could scarcely be called: since in Texas
the genus does not exist.
A certain grotesqueness about the man added to the national instinct for
guessing--which had been rendered excruciatingly keen through some
revelations, contributed by "Old Duffer."
For all that, the transatlantic limb of the law proved himself tolerably
true to the traditions of his craft. With the exception of the trifling
imprudences already detailed--drawn from him in the first moments of
surprise--he never afterwards committed himself; but kept his lips close
as an oyster at ebb tide.
There was not much time for him to use his tongue. On the day after his
arrival the trial was to take place; and during most of the interval he
was either in the guard-house along with the prisoner, or closeted with
the San Antonio counsel.
The rumour became rife that Maurice Gerald had told them a tale--a
strange weird story--but of its details the world outside remained in
itching ignorance.
There was one who knew it--one able to confirm it--Zeb Stump the hunter.
There may have been another; but this other was not in the confidence
either of the accused or his counsel.
Zeb himself did not appear in their company. Only once had he been seen
conferring with them. After that he was gone--both from the guard-house
and the settlement, as everybody supposed, about his ordinary business--
in search of deer, "baar," or "gobbler."
Everybody was in error. Zeb for the time had forsaken his usual
pursuits, or, at all events, the game he was accustomed to chase,
capture, and kill.
It is true he was out upon a stalking expedition; but instead of birds
or beasts, he was after an animal of neither sort; one that could not be
classed with creatures either of the earth or the air--a horseman
without a head!