Lives of Alcyone

FORTY-SEVENTH LIFE 223
Other men testified to having clearly seen Alcyone carrying a
huge load in a sack, which might well have been a human body, a
few hours later during the same night; and he had been walking in
the direction of the place where the body was afterwards found. The
servant positively identified the body as that of his master; as it had
been hidden under water, the face had been eaten away by fishes,
and was not therefore actually recognisable, but there was no
mistake as to the clothes and general shape and appearance of the
corpse.
In the face of such circumstantial evidence the judge could
scarcely hesitate; but when, even at the last moment, thinking of the
unblemished reputation of Alcyone, he delayed to pronounce the
sentence, another witness appeared who, passing beneath the
window of the dead man’ s room, had heard a furious altercation, in
which he had recognised the voices of Alcyone and his uncle, the
latter crying for mercy and the former angrily refusing it. the witness
declared that he had waited for a time to see what would come of it,
and watched until he saw Alcyone come forth bearing the sack upon
his shoulders as previously described, and with an expression of
great fear upon his countenance and obvious bloodstains upon his
clothing. A cloak of his with bloodstains on it was produced in court;
and the judge reluctantly pronounced the death penalty, adding to it
remarks of deep regret that one who had been so universally
respected for many years should, in a moment of revengeful
passion, have been guilty of so barbarous a deed. Alcyone of course
protested his innocence all through, but as the proofs accumulated
he seemed quite stunned, and at last he could only say: “ I do-not