etter till I'm hung."

I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took another
cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke, said, very
unconcernedly"--

"Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung
for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and
Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here, but in
Texas, under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder.
Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."

"Send away the nigger, squire," said Bob. "What a free white man has to
say, shouldn't be heard by black ears."

"Go away, Ptoly," said the judge. "Now, then," added he, turning to Bob,
"say what you have to say; but mind, nobody forces you to do it, and
it's only out of good will that I listen to you, for to-day's Sunday."

"I know that," muttered Bob; "I know that, squire; but it leaves me no
peace, and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac,
every where, but it's all no use. Wherever I go, the spectre follows me,
and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."

"Under the Patriarch!" exclaimed the judge.

"Ay, under the Patriarch!" groaned Bob. "Don't you know the Patriarch;
the old live oak near the ford, on the Jacinto?"

"I know, I know!" answered the Judge. "And what drives you under the
Patriarch?"

"What drives me? What drives a man who--who"----

"A man who"---- repeated the judge, gently.

"A man," continued Bob, in the same low tone, "who has sent a rifle
bullet into another's heart. He lies there, under the Patriarch, whom
I"----

"Whom you?" asked the judge.

"_Whom I killed!_" said Bob, in a hollow whisper.

"Killed!" exclaimed the judge. "You killed him? Whom?"

"Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your
palaver," growled Bob.

"You are getting saucy, Bob," said the judge impatiently. "Go on,
however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."

Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment, and
then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.

"Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"

"I dragged him there, and buried him there," replied Bob.

"Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"

"Because he couldn't go himself, with more than half an ounce of lead in
his body."

"And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob? Well, if it was
Johnny, you've done the country a service, a