He was going to confess--that was the rumour. His lawyers wanted
him to confess; the preacher who had been singing hymns with him
all morning wanted him to confess; the man himself said he wanted
to confess; and now he was going to confess. What deadly mysteries
he might clear up if he would! No wonder the crowd was eager, for
there was no soul there but knew his record--and what a record!
His best friends put his victims no lower than thirteen, and there
looking up at him were three women whom he had widowed or
orphaned, while at one corner of the jail-yard stood a girl in
black--the sweetheart of Mockaby, for whose death Rufe was
standing where he stood now. But his lips did not open. Instead he
took hold of the side of the window and looked behind him. The
sheriff brought him a chair and he sat down. Apparently he was
weak and he was going to wait a while. Would he tell how he had
killed one Falin in the presence of the latter's wife at a wild
bee tree; how he had killed a sheriff by dropping to the ground
when the sheriff fired, in this way dodging the bullet and then
shooting the officer from where he lay supposedly dead; how he had
thrown another Falin out of the Court House window and broken his
neck--the Falin was drunk, Rufe always said, and fell out; why,
when he was constable, he had killed another--because, Rufe said,
he resisted arrest; how and where he had killed Red-necked
Johnson, who was found out in the woods? Would he tell all that
and more? If he meant to tell there was no sign.
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