until the bones cracked; then rising up
and striking his stick bitterly upon the earth--

"I can't," he exclaimed, "I can't get out the curses against him; but my
heart's full of them--they're in it--they're in it!--it's black an'
hot wid them; I feel them here--here--movin an if they war alive, an'
they'll be out."

Such was the strength and impetuosity of his hatred, and such his
eagerness to discharge the whole quiver of his maledictions against the
great public delinquent, that, as often happens in cases of overwhelming
agitation, his faculties were paralyzed by the storm of passion which
raged within him.

Having risen to his feet, he left the group, muttering his wordless
malignity as he went along, and occasionally pausing to look back with
the fiery glare of a hyena at the house in which the robbery of his
soul's treasure had been planned and accomplished.

It is unnecessary to say that the arrangements entered into with
Cassidy, by John O'Brien, were promptly and ably carried into effect. A
rapid ride soon brought the man of briefs and depositions to the prison,
where the unhappy Connor lay. The young man's story, though simple, was
improbable, and his version of the burning such as induced Cassidy,
who knew little of impressions and feelings in the absence of facts,
to believe that no other head than his ever concocted the crime. Still,
from the manly sincerity with which his young client spoke, he
felt inclined to impute the act to a freak of boyish malice and
disappointment, rather than to a spirit of vindictive rancor. He
entertained no expectation whatsoever of Connor's acquittal, and hinted
to him that it was his habit in such cases to recommend his clients
to be prepared for the worst, without, at the same time, altogether
abolishing hope. There was, indeed, nothing to break the chain of
circumstantial evidence in which Flanagan had entangled him; he had been
at the haggard shortly before the conflagration broke out; he had met
Phil Curtis, and begged that man to conceal the fact of his having seen
him, and he had not slept in his own bed either on that or the preceding
night. It was to no purpose he affirmed that Flanagan himself had
borrowed from him, and worn, on the night in question, the shoes whose
prints were so strongly against him, or that the steel and tinder--box,
which were found in his pocket, actually belonged to his accuser, who
must have put them there without his knowledge. His case