“Do you pretend being an honest man?”
“What! I pretend? Let them send for my employers.”
“That is not necessary. I know your antecedents, from the first petty
theft that procured you four months’ imprisonment, to the aggravated
robbery for which you were sent to the penitentiary, when you were in
the army.”
Profound stupor lengthened all of Crochard’s features; but he was
not the man to give up a game in which his head was at stake, without
fighting for it.
“Well, there you are mistaken,” he said very coolly. “I have been
condemned to ten years, that is true, when I was a soldier; but it was
for having struck an officer who had punished me unjustly.”
“You lie. A former soldier of your regiment, who is now in garrison here
in Saigon, will prove it.”
For the first time the accused seemed to be really troubled. He saw all
of a sudden his past rising before him, which until now he had thought
unknown or forgotten; and he knew full well the weight which antecedents
like his would have in the scales of justice. So he changed his tactics;
and, assuming an abject humility, he said,--
“One may have committed a fault, and still be incapable of murdering a
man.”
“That is not your case.”
“Oh! how can you say such a thing?--I who would not harm a fly. Unlucky
gun! Must I needs have such a mishap?”
The magistrate had for some time been looking at the accused with an air
of the most profound disgust. He interrupted him rudely now, and said,--
“Look here, my man! Spare us those useless denials. Justice knows
everything it wants to know. That shot was the third attempt you made to
murder a man.”
Crochard drew back. He looked livid. But he had still the strength to
say in a half-strangled voice,--
“That is false!”
But the magistrate had too great an abundance of evidence to allow the
examination to continue. He said simply,--
“Who, then, threw, during the voyage, an enormous block at M. Champcey’s
head? Come, don’t deny it. The emigrant who was near you, who saw you,
and who promised he would not report you at that time, has spoken. Do
you want to see him?”
Once more Crochard opened his lips to protest his innocence; but he
could not utter a sound. He was crushed, annihilated; he trembled in all
his limbs; and his teeth rattled in his mouth. In less than no time, his
features had sunk in, as it were, till he looked like a man at the foot
of the scaffold. It may be, that, feeling he was irretrievably lost, he
had had a vision of the fatal instrument.
“Believe me,” continued the lawyer, “do not insist upon the impossible;
you had better tell the truth.”
For another minute yet, the miserable man hesitated. Then, seeing no
other chance of safety, except the mercy of the judges, he fell heavily
on his knees, and stammered out,--
“I am a wretched man.”
At the same instant a cry of astonishment burst from the doctor, from
Daniel, and the worthy Lefloch. But the man of law was not surprised. He
knew in advance that the first victory would be easily won, and that the
real difficulty would be to induce the prisoner to confess the name of
his principal. Without giving him, therefore time to recover, he said,--
“Now, what reasons had you for persecuting M. Champcey in this way?”