with his own hands rather than that she should become Katt's wife.
Just by Baxwell's house was a sort of a cave, probably a disused cellar. One day unwonted sounds were heard issuing from this cave. There were several shrieks, which ended in groans that became less and less distinct. A sad silence followed. The sounds were so peculiar that they became the gossip of the neighborhood. A day or two afterwards it transpired that Elezia had disappeared from her father's house, and was nowhere to be found. Baxwell pretended to be distracted, and demanded a search. Then a rumor began to grow, connecting the screams in the cave with the girl's disappearance; and people began to suspect foul play. These things soon reached the officers of justice. Baxwell's arrest and a strict search of the premises were ordered. In the cave, whence the sounds had been heard, were found parts of the girl's dress and some of her hair; while here and there were spots of blood, which was also discovered on the dress and the hair. The remembrance of Baxwell's threat now came to the minds of those who had heard it, and Baxwell was arraigned for the murder of his daughter. The trial was brief, and the proof so conclusive that the jury came in almost immediately with the verdict of guilty.
Poor Baxwell was overwhelmed, and spent the short period between the close of the trial and the day of execution in a state bordering upon insensibility. When the jailer came to lead him out to the scaffold, he cried out, with visible agony, "Before my God, I swear that I am innocent of my poor daughter's death!" As he passed up the steps to the fatal platform, he saw William Katt standing among the spectators with sombre countenance. The doomed man stopped, and stretched out his hand. When Katt took it, Baxwell said, in a tremulous voice: "My friend, I am about to die. I wish to die at peace with all. I freely forgive you for giving evidence against me." Katt had sworn to having heard Baxwell make the threat. On hearing these words Katt now turned pale, and fell back with great agitation.
The prisoner ascended to the platform. The executioner shouted, "Justice is doing! Justice is done!" placed the black bonnet on Baxwell's eyes, and was in the act of adjusting the fatal rope, when a cry was heard just below,—"Stop! I am the guilty man—and I alone! " William Katt, having said this, came forward and presented himself to the officers of justice.
The whole was soon explained. Elezia was not dead at all, but, having become Katt's wife, was now hidden in the outskirts of the town. Katt had planned the tragedy which had followed her disappearance, from first to last. He had placed the dress, the hair, and the blood in the cave, and had made the lugubrious cries which had been heard to proceed from it. He fully intended that Baxwell should suffer the penalty of the supposed murder, in order to be revenged upon him for his obstinate refusal. But Baxwell's word of pardon at the last moment bred in him a sudden and overwhelming repentance, and in the nick of time he shouted and saved him.
But it was too late. Baxwell, on hearing the truth, sank down on the scaffold as if overwhelmed. The black hood was drawn from his head, when he was found to be dead. Whether it was from excess of joyful emotion or from the fear of death, could not be told. Katt was condemned to a long imprisonment, and Elezia spent the rest of her life secluded from the world in a convent.
Never did circumstantial evidence bear more heavily upon a man than upon Jonathan Bradford, the Oxfordshire innkeeper. There was in his case a strange conjunction of circumstances, which makes the paradoxical assertion that he was at once guilty and not guilty a justifiable one. Certainly no more singular instance of a criminal intent, followed by the result of the intent, for which result he who conceived the intent was not responsible, was ever cited in court of law. Bradford's case has more than once fur-
