It could not deceive a
child. But there was a difference between myself and the other
officers, because _I_ KNEW MY MAN and they did not. They saw in
you a common soldier, and I knew you for a gentleman. To them your
evidence was a leash of lies, which they yawned to hear you
telling. Now, I was asking myself, how far will a gentleman go?
Not surely so far as to help hush a murder up? So that--when I
heard you tell how you knew nothing of the matter, and were only
awakened by the corporal, and all the rest of it--I translated your
statements into something else. Now, Champdivers,' he cried,
springing up lively and coming towards me with animation, 'I am
going to tell you what that was, and you are going to help me to
see justice done: how, I don't know, for of course you are under
oath--but somehow. Mark what I'm going to say.'
At that moment he laid a heavy, hard grip upon my shoulder; and
whether he said anything more or came to a full stop at once, I am
sure I could not tell you to this day. For, as the devil would
have it, the shoulder he laid hold of was the one Goguelat had
pinked. The wound was but a scratch; it was healing with the first
intention; but in the clutch of Major Chevenix it gave me agony.
My head swam; the sweat poured off my face; I must have grown
deadly pale.
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