or such--and some man in-corrupted him, and lied; and bein' in
gre't haste--and a little old Adam in him--he says, right off, quick:
'_All_ men are liars!' But see! When he gits a little time to set back
and meditate, he says: 'Dis won' do--dere's Moses an' Job, an' Paul--dey
ain't liars!' An' den he don' sneak out, and 'low he said, 'All men is
lions,' or such. No! de Psalmist ain't no such man; but he owns up, 'an
'xplains. '_In my haste_,' he says, 'I said it.'"

The foreman rose and rapped.

"I await a motion," said he, "if our friend will allow me the privilege
of speaking."

Mr. Washington calmly bowed.

Then the foreman, when nobody seemed disposed to move, speaking slowly
at first, and piecemeal, alternating language with smoke, gradually
edged into the current of the evidence, and ended by going all over it
again, with fresh force and point. His cigar glowed and chilled in the
darkening room as he talked.

"Now," he said, when he had drawn all the threads together to the point
of guilt, "what are we going to do upon this evidence?"

"I 'll tell you something," said Eli. "I did n't want to say it because
I know what you 'll all think, but I 'll tell you, all the same."

"Ah!" said the foreman.

Eli stood up and faced the others.

"'Most all o' you know what our Bar is in a southeast gale. They ain't a
man here that would dare to try and cross it when the sea's breakin' on
it. The man that says he would, lies!" And he looked at the foreman, and
waited a moment.

"When my wife took sick, and I stopped goin' to sea, two year ago, and
took up boat-fishin', I did n't know half as much about the coast as the
young boys do, and one afternoon it was blowin' a gale, and we was all
hands comin' in, and passin' along the Bar to go sheer 'round it to the
west'ard, and Captain Fred Cook--he's short-sighted--got on to the Bar
before he knew it, and then he hed to go ahead, whether or no; and I was
right after him, and I s'posed he knew, and I followed him. Well, he was
floated over, as luck was, all right; but when I 'd just got on the Bar,
a roller dropped back and let my bowsprit down into the sand, and then
come up quicker'n lightnin' and shouldered the boat over, t' other end
first, and slung me into the water; and when I come up, I see somethin'
black, and there was John Wood's boat runnin' by me before the wind with
a rush--and 'fore I knew an'thing, he had me by the hair by one hand,
and in his boat, and w