'What the matter?' he say; and I say, 'I don't know.' And then
something come, wheugh! out of the dark, just like that, and knock John
down, and knock me down. We grab everywhere all at once. It is a man.
He is in undress. He fight. He cry, 'Oh! Oh! Oh!' just like that.
We hold him tight, and bime-by pretty quick, he stop. Then we get up,
and I say, 'Come along back.'"
"Who was the man?"
La Flitche turned partly, and rested his eyes on St. Vincent.
"Go on."
"So? The man he will not go back; but John and I say yes, and he go."
"Did he say anything?"
"I ask him what the matter; but he cry, he . . . he sob, _huh-tsch_,
_huh-tsch_, just like that."
"Did you see anything peculiar about him?"
La Flitche's brows drew up interrogatively.
^Anything uncommon, out of the ordinary?"
"Ah, _oui_; blood on the hands." Disregarding the murmur in the room,
he went on, his facile play of feature and gesture giving dramatic
value to the recital. "John make a light, and Bella groan, like the
hair-seal when you shoot him in the body, just like that when you shoot
him in the body under the flipper. And Borg lay over in the corner. I
look. He no breathe 'tall.
"Then Bella open her eyes, and I look in her eyes, and I know she know
me, La Flitche. 'Who did it, Bella?' I ask. And she roll her head on
the floor and whisper, so low, so slow, 'Him dead?' I know she mean
Borg, and I say yes.
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