“All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength.  I saw nothing but him, and him not always distinctly.  During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I had never heard from the throat of man or brute!

“For a moment only I stood irresolute, then throwing down my gun I ran forward to my friend’s assistance.  I had a vague belief that he was suffering from a fit, or some form of convulsion.  Before I could reach his side he was down and quiet.  All sounds had ceased, but with a feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I now saw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolonging itself from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a wood.  It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my eyes and look at my companion.  He was dead.”

III

A MAN THOUGH NAKED MAY BE IN RAGS

The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the dead man.  Lifting an edge of the sheet he pulled it away, exposing the entire body, altogether naked and showing in the candle-light a claylike yellow.  It had, however, broad maculations of bluish black, obviously caused by extravasated blood from contusions.  The chest and sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon.  There were dreadful lacerations; the skin was torn in strips and shreds.

The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk handkerchief which had been passed under the chin and knotted on the top of the head.  When the handkerchief was drawn away it exposed what had been the throat.  Some of the jurors who had risen to get a better view repented their curiosity and turned away their faces.  Witness Harker went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick.  Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man’s neck the coroner stepped to an angle of the room and from a pile of clothing produced one garment after another, each of which he held up a moment for inspection.  All were torn, and stiff with blood.  The jurors did not make a closer inspection.  They seemed rather uninterested.  They had, in truth, seen all this before; the only thing that was new to them being Harker’s testimony.

“Gentlemen,” the coroner said, “we have no more evidence, I think.  Your duty has been already explained to you; if there is nothing you wish to ask you may go outside and consider your verdict.”

The foreman rose—­a tall, bearded man of sixty, coarsely clad.

“I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner,” he said.  “What asylum did this yer last witness escape from?”

“Mr. Harker,” said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, “from what asylum did you last escape?”