"Shall I put a bold face upon it, and confess to having killed him? I
can say we met while out hunting; quarrelled, and fought--a fair fight;
shot for shot; my luck to have the last. Will that story stand?"
A pause in the soliloquy; a glance at the prostrate form; another, which
interrogates the scene around, taking in the huge unshapely trunks,
their long outstretched limbs, with the pall-like festoonery of Spanish
moss; a thought about the loneliness of the place, and its fitness for
concealing a dead body.
Like the lightning's flashes, all this flits through the mind of the
murderer. The result, to divert him from his half-formed resolution--
perceiving its futility.
"It won't do," he mutters, his speech indicating the change. "No, that
it won't! Better say nothing about what's happened. They're not likely
to look for him here..."
Again he glances inquiringly around, with a view to secreting the
corpse. He has made up his mind to this.
A sluggish creak meanders among the trees, some two hundred yards from
the spot. At about a like distance below, it discharges itself into the
stagnant reservoir of the swamp.
Its waters are dark, from the overshadowing of the cypresses, and deep
enough for the purpose he is planning.
But to carry the body thither will require an effort of strength; and to
drag it would be sure to leave traces.