One or two of the soldiers who had been lingering at a little distance in the dusky twilight now advanced, half pushing before them, half leading, the very woman who had addressed Nellie so impudently in the morning. She came forward with a strange mixture of eagerness and reluctance in her manner; willing enough, it might be, to bear false testimony against her neighbor, but very unwilling to be confronted with its object. They placed her face to face with Mrs. Netterville, and the captain turned his lantern so that the light fell full on the features of the latter. They were cold and calm, and almost disdainful in their expression, now that she knew who was her accuser; and Deborah, spite of all her efforts to brazen out the interview, cowered beneath her glance of scorn. "Nay, but look well upon her, Deborah," said the captain, seeing that her eyes fell beneath those of the woman she had accused. "Look well upon her, and say if this be not that Moabitish woman whom thou sawest, as thou wert lingering (for no good purpose, I do fear me greatly) in the shadow of the trees--whom thou sawest, say I, steal hither between light and darkness, and treacherously do to death our brother Tomkins, who, being--as methinks you revealed to me just now--wearied overmuch with prayer and holding forth, (he was, as I myself can testify, a man of most precious doctrine, and greatly favored in the gift of preaching,) had come hither to repose himself." "Nay," said the woman, speaking in very tolerable English, an accomplishment she had picked up when in service in Dublin; "of that great weariness caused by too much prayer and preaching. Master Rippel, I said naught--my own impression being," she added, unable even before such an audience to repress the gibe, "that the slumberous inclinations of worthy Master Tomkins had been caused by a somewhat too ardent devotion lately tendered to the wine-cask." "Peace, scoffer! peace!" cried the captain. "And if thou wouldst have thy blasphemy against the Lord and against his saints forgiven, in this world or the next, look once more on the face of the prisoner, and be not shamefaced or afraid, but say out boldly whether you can swear to her in a court of justice as being the person whom you espied just now in the act--yea, the very act of murder." "I can," said the woman shortly, and avoiding the eye of Mrs. Netterville as she spoke. "Thou canst?" the latter said in a tone of indignant astonishment. "And pray, if thou wert watching me so narrowly, why didst thou not endeavor to prevent me?--why not strike up my weapon?--why not cry out, at least, so as to rouse up the sleeping soldier?" "I did what I could," the woman sullenly responded. "I sought out his comrades. It was their look-out, not mine, and to them accordingly I left it." {186}