because it seems so easy to kill."

"True," the hoarser voice commented in dull and ponderous accents.
"When once blood has flowed the fact leads to more blood, and if a man
has started out to kill, he cares nothing for any reason--he finds good
enough the reason which comes first to his hand."

"But if this young fellow is speaking the truth, he had a BUSINESS
reason--though, properly speaking, even property ought not to provoke
quarrels."

"Similarly one ought not to kill just when one chooses. Folk who commit
such crimes should have justice meted out to them."

"Yes, but it is difficult always to obtain such justice. For instance,
this young fellow seems to have spent over a year in prison for
nothing."

"'For nothing'? Why, did he not entice his father into the hut, and
then shut the door upon him, and throw a coat over his head? He has
said so himself. 'For nothing,' indeed!"

Upon this the rapid stream of sobbed, disconnected words, which I had
heard before from some speaker poured forth anew. Somehow, I guessed
that it came from the man in the dirty boots, as once more he recounted
the story of the murder.

"I do not wish to justify myself," he said. "I say merely that,
inasmuch as I was promised a reprieve at the trial, I told everything,
and was therefore allowed to go free, while my uncle and my brother
were sentenced to penal servitude."

"But you KNEW that they had agreed to kill him?"

"Well, it is my idea that at first they intended only to give him a
good fright. Never did my father recognise me as his son--always he
called me a Jesuit."

The gruffer of the two voices pulled up the speaker.

"To think," it said, "that you can actually talk about it all!"

"Why shouldn't I? My father brought tears to the eyes of many an
innocent person."

"A fig for people's tears! If our causes of tears were one and all to
be murdered, what would the state of things become? Shed tears, but
never blood; for blood is not yours to shed. And even if you should
believe your own blood to be your own, know that it is not so, that
your blood does not belong to you, but to Someone Else."

"The point in question was my father's property. It all shows how a man
may live awhile, and earn his living, and then suddenly go amiss, and
lose his wits, and even conceive a grudge against his own father....
Now I must get some sleep."

Behind the bales all grew quiet. Presently I rose to peer in that
direction. The passeng