Is this innocence?"
MRS. HEMANS.
During the examination of Don Alonzo of Aguilar, and of old Pedro and
Juana, the prisoner remained with his arms calmly folded and head
erect, without the smallest variation of feature or position denoting
either anxiety or agitation. Don Alonzo's statement was very simple.
He described the exact spot where he had found the body, and the
position in which it lay; the intense agitation of Stanley, the bloody
appearance of his clothes, hands, and face, urging them to secure his
person even before they discovered the broken fragment of his sword
lying beside the corse. His account was corroborated, in the very
minutest points, by the men who had accompanied him, even though
cross-questioned with unusual particularity by Father Francis. Old
Pedro's statement, though less circumstantial, was, to the soldiers
and citizens especially, quite as convincing. He gave a wordy
narrative of Senor Stanley's unnatural state of excitement from the
very evening he had become his lodger--that he had frequently heard
him muttering to himself such words as "blood" and "vengeance." He
constantly appeared longing for something; never eat half the meals
provided for him--a sure proof, in old Pedro's imagination, of a
disordered mind, and that the night of the murder he had heard him
leave the house, with every symptom of agitation.
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