Enigmas of yustice.

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with his own hands rather than that she On hearing these words Katt now turned should become Katt's wife. pale, and fell back with great agitation. Just by Baxwell's house was a sort of a The prisoner ascended to the platform. cave, probably a disused cellar. One day The executioner shouted, " Justice is doing! unwonted sounds were heard issuing from Justice is done! " placed the black bonnet on this cave. There were several shrieks, which Baxwell's eyes, and was in the act of adjust ended in groans that became less and less ing the fatal rope, when a cry was heard distinct. A sad silence followed. The just below, — " Stop! I am the guilty man — sounds were so peculiar that they became and I alone! " William Katt, having said the gossip of the neighborhood. A day or this, came forward and presented himself to two afterwards it transpired that Elezia had the officers of justice. The whole was soon explained. Elezia disappeared from her father's house, and was nowhere to be found. Baxwell pretended to was not dead at all, but, having become be distracted, and demanded a search. Then Katt's wife, was now hidden in the out a rumor began to grow, connecting the skirts of the town. Katt had planned the screams in the cave with the girl's disap tragedy which had followed her disappear pearance; and people began to suspect foul ance, from first to last. He had placed the play. These things soon reached the officers dress, the hair, and the blood in the cave, of justice. Baxwell's arrest and a strict and had made the lugubrious cries which search of the premises were ordered. In the had been heard to proceed from it. He fully cave, whence the sounds had been heard, were intended that Baxwell should suffer the pen found parts of the girl's dress and some of alty of the supposed murder, in order to be her hair; while here and there were spots revenged upon him for his obstinate refusal. of blood, which was also discovered on the But Baxwell's word of pardon at the last dress and the hair. The remembrance of moment bred in him a sudden and over Baxwell's threat now came to the minds of whelming repentance, and in the nick of those who had heard it, and Baxwell was time he shouted and saved him. But it was too late. Baxwell, on hearing arraigned for the murder of his daughter. The trial was brief, and the proof so conclu the truth, sank down on the scaffold as if sive that the jury came in almost immediately overwhelmed. The black hood was drawn with the verdict of guilty. from his head, when he was found to be Poor Baxwell was overwhelmed, and spent dead. Whether it was from excess of joyful the short period between the close of the emotion or from the fear of death, could not trial and the day of execution in a state bor be told. Katt was condemned to a long dering upon insensibility. When the jailer imprisonment, and Elezia spent the rest of came to lead him out to the scaffold, he cried her life secluded from the world in a convent. Never did circumstantial evidence bear out, with visible agony, " Before my God, I swear that I am innocent of my poor daugh more heavily upon a man than upon Jona ter's death! " As he passed up the steps than Bradford, the Oxfordshire innkeeper. to the fatal platform, he saw William Katt There was in his case a strange conjunction standing among the spectators with sombre of circumstances, which makes the paradoxi countenance. The doomed man stopped, and cal assertion that he was at once guilty and stretched out his hand. When Katt took it, not guilty a justifiable one. Certainly no Baxwell said, in a tremulous voice : " My more singular instance of a criminal intent, friend, I am about to die. I wish to die at followed by the result of the intent, for which peace with all. I freely forgive you for giv result he who conceived the intent was not ing evidence against me." Katt had sworn responsible, was ever cited in 'court of law. to having heard Baxwell make the threat. Bradford's case has more than once fur