I saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward; and
I believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I had given him the
matches purposely that he might burn himself up with them. I had not a
doubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this tragedy were
found out. The happenings and the impressions of that time are burnt
into my memory, and the study of them entertains me as much now as they
themselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grisly matter, I
was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for I
was always dreading and expecting to find out that I was suspected; and
so fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience, that
it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in
looks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but which
sent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick
it made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of
intent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I was
carrying a pretty weighty cargo.
All this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing - the fact that I was
an inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found my
bed-mate - my younger brother - sitting up in bed and contemplating me by
the light of the moon. I said -
'What is the matter?'
'You talk so much I can't sleep.'
I came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my throat
and my hair on end.
'What did I say. Quick - out with it - what did I say?'
'Nothing much.'
'It's a lie - you know everything.'
'Everything about what?'
'You know well enough. About THAT.'
'About WHAT? - I don't know what you are talking about. I think you are
sick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get to
sleep while I've got a chance.'
He fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terror
over in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of my
thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know? - what a
distress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea - I would
wake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook him
up, and said -
'Suppose a man should come to you drunk - '
'This is foolish - I never get drunk.'
'I don't mean you, idiot - I mean the man. Suppose a MAN should come to
you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you
forgot to tell him it was loaded, and - '
'How could you load a tomahawk?'
'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I said the
pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this is
serious. There's been a man killed.'
'What! in this town?'
'Yes, in this town.'
'Well, go on - I won't say a single word.'
'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it,
because it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that
pistol - fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident,
being drunk. Well, would it be murder?'
'No - suicide.'
'No, no. I don't mean HIS act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer
for letting him have that pistol?'
After deep thought came this answer -
'Well, I should think I was guilty of something - maybe murder - yes,
probably murder, but I don't quite know.'
This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive
verdict. I should have to set out the real case - there seemed to be no
other way. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for
suspicious effects. I said -
'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do you
know how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'
'No.'
'Haven't you the least idea?'
'Not the least.'
'Wish you may die in your tracks if you have?'
'Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.'
'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his
pipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with those
very matches, and burnt himself up.'
'Is that so?'
'Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think?'
'Let me see. The man was drunk?'
'Yes, he was drunk.'
'Very drunk?'
'Yes.'
'And the boy knew it?'
'Yes, he knew it.'
There was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict -
'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man.
This is certain.'
Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body, and I
seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence
pronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say
next. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said -
'I know the boy.'
I had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then he
added -
'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew
perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!'
I came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, with
admiration -
'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'
'You told it in your sleep.'
I said to myself, 'How splendid that is!
