I
should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that I could
have seen his heart--the infallible test. At moments of mighty
moral strain men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and
speech; but they cannot control that tell-tale diaphragm of flesh
over the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a
Kaffir spy. ... But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the lips
... I deliberately threw weight into the scale of Mrs. Boyce's
foolish question. If he had not lost his balance, why should he
have launched into an almost passionate defence of the physical
coward?
My memory went back to the narrative of the poor devil in the Cape
Town hospital. Boyce's description of the general phenomenon was a
deadly corroboration of Somers's account of the individual case.
They had used the same word--"paralysed." Boyce had made a fierce
and definite apologia for the very act of which Somers had accused
him. He put it down to the sudden epilepsy of fear for which a man
was irresponsible. Somers's story had never seemed so convincing--
the first part of it, at least--the part relating to the paralysis
of terror. But the second part--the account of the diabolical
ingenuity by means of which Boyce rehabilitated himself--instead
of blowing his brains out like a gentleman--still hammered at the
gates of my credulity.
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