Now, you can straighten that up and read it out
to me."
The magistrate's pen scratched noisily in the stillness of the room,
but, before he had finished, Sergeant Stimson, hot and dusty, came in.
Then he raised his hand, and for a while his voice rose and fell
monotonously, until Courthorne nodded.
"That's all right," he said. "I'll sign."
The doctor raised him a trifle, and moistened his lips with brandy as
he gave him the pen. It scratched for a moment or two, and then fell
from his relaxing fingers, while the man who took the paper wrote
across the foot of it, and then would have handed it to Colonel
Barrington, but that Dane quietly laid his hand upon it.
"No," he said. "If you want another witness take me."
Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and Courthorne, looking round,
saw Stimson.
"You have been very patient, Sergeant, and it's rough on you that the
one man you can lay your hands upon is slipping away from you," he
said. "You'll see by my deposition that Winston thought me as dead as
the rest of you did."
Stimson nodded to the magistrate. "I heard what was read, and it is
confirmed by the facts I have picked up," he said.
Then Courthorne turned to Barrington. "I sympathize with you, sir," he
said. "This must be horribly mortifying, but, you see, Winston once
stopped my horse backing over a bridge into a gully when just to hold
his hand would have rid him of me. You will not grudge me the one good
turn I have probably done any man, when I shall assuredly not have the
chance of doing another.
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