You need fear nothing from me now.

But I must speak." The officer frowned warningly.
"You'd better not!" he said.
"I must!" repeated Tom.

"You think,--all of you,--that I had no cause--no provocation--to kill the man who lies there"-- and he turned a fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood was trickling slowly along the floor--"I swear before God that I _had_ cause!--and that my cause was just! I _had_ provocation!--the bitterest and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am.

Look yonder!" And lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms and set down when he had first entered the inn.

"Look, I say!--and then tell me I had no cause!" With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated, and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under it.