n was then stone dead, and brief examination showed the hole of a
bullet of large calibre--probably pistol, 44--right over the heart. The
coarse blue uniform shirt and the fine undergarment of Lisle thread
showed by burn and powder-stain that the pistol had been close to or
even against the breast of the deceased. The bullet was lodged, he
believed, under the shoulder-blade, but no post-mortem had yet been
permitted, a circumstance the doctor referred to regretfully, and it was
merely his opinion, based on purely superficial examination, that death
was instantaneous, the result of the gunshot wound referred to. Dr.
Brick further gave it as his professional opinion that post-mortem
should be no longer delayed.

And then at last came Stuyvesant's turn to speak for himself, and in
dead silence all men present faced him and listened with bated breath to
his brief, sorrowful words.

He was the officer halted by the sentry on Number 6 and called upon to
come back. The sentry did not catch his name and had to have it spelled.
He frankly admitted his impatience, but denied all anger at the enforced
detention. The information about the fire at Colonel Brent's had caused
him anxiety and alarm, and as soon as released by the sentry he had run,
had passed the patrol on the run, but there had been no altercation, no
misunderstanding even. The sentry had carried out his orders in a
soldierly way that compelled the admiration of the witness, and before
leaving him Stuyvesant had told him that he had done exactly right. The
news that the sentry was found dead five minutes thereafter was a shock.
Lieutenant Stuyvesant declared he carried no fire-arms whatever that
night and was utterly innocent of the sentry's death. He recognized, he
said, the revolver exhibited by Major MacNeil. He did not hesitate to
admit that he had seen and examined it late the previous afternoon at
the quarters of Colonel Brent, that he had actually put it in his
trousers pocket not two minutes before he left the house to go in search
of Lieutenant Ray, but he solemnly declared that as he left the veranda
he placed the pistol on a little table just to the right of the broad
entrance to the salon, within that apartment, and never saw it again
until it was produced here.

Frank, candid, "open and aboveboard" as was the manner of the witness,
it did not fail to banish in great measure the feeling of antagonism
that had first existed against him in the crowded thro