Opinions were
divided. Some two-thirds of the Station jumped at once to the conclusion that
Biel was guilty; but a dozen men who knew and liked him held by him. Biel was
furious and surprised. He denied the whole thing, and vowed that he would
thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his life. No jury, we knew, could convict
a man on the criminal count on native evidence in a land where you can buy a
murder-charge, including the corpse, all complete for fifty-four rupees; but
Biel did not care to scrape through by the benefit of a doubt. He wanted the
whole thing cleared: but as he said one night:--"He can prove anything with
servants' evidence, and I've only my bare word." This was about a month before
the case came on; and beyond agreeing with Biel, we could do little. All that
we could be sure of was that the native evidence would be bad enough to blast
Biel's character for the rest of his service; for when a native begins perjury
he perjures himself thoroughly. He does not boggle over details.
Some genius at the end of the table whereat the affair was being talked over,
said:--"Look here! I don't believe lawyers are any good. Get a man to wire to
Strickland, and beg him to come down and pull us through."
Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles up the line.
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