In a low,
constrained voice--the awful hush of the court-room had evidently
impressed him--and in plain, simple words, in strong contrast to the
flowery opening of the prosecutor, he recounted the facts as he knew
them. He told of the sudden command to halt; of the attack in the rear
and the quick jerking of the mail-bags from beneath his saddle,
upsetting him into the road; of the disappearance of the robber in the
bushes, his head and shoulders only outlined against the dim light of
the stars; of the flight of the robber, and of his finding the bag a few
yards away from the place of assault with the bottom cut. None of the
letters was found opened; which ones were missing tie couldn't say. Of
one thing he was sure--none were left behind by him on the ground, when
he refilled the bag.
The bag, with a slash in the bottom as big as its mouth, was then passed
around the jury-box, each juror in his inspection of the cut seeming to
be more interested in the way in which the bag was manufactured (some of
them, I should judge, had never examined one before) than in the way in
which it was mutilated.
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