Then Peter Mauger was pushed along from the back, with friendly thumps and growling injunctions to speak up.

But the looks bestowed on Gard were of quite a different quality from those given to Peter, and the men at the table could not but notice it.
"We will take Peter Mauger first.

Let him be sworn," said the Senechal, and Gard sat down.
The Greffier swore Peter in the old Island fashion--"Vous jurez par la foi que vous devez a Dieu que vous direz la verite, et rien que la verite, et tous ce que vous connaissez dans cette cause, et que Dieu vous soit en aide! (You swear by the faith which you owe to God that you will tell the truth, and only the truth, and all that you know concerning this case, and so help you God!)" Peter put up his right hand and swore so to do.
"Now tell us all you know," said the Senechal.
And Peter ramblingly told how he and Tom had been drinking together the night before, and how Tom had started off home and he had gone to bed.
"Were you both drunk ?" "Well--" "Very well, you were.

Did you think it right to let your friend go off in that condition when he had to cross the Coupee ?" "I've seen him worse, many times, and no harm come to him." "Well, get on!" He told how Mrs.Tom woke him up in the morning, and how they had all gone in search of the missing man.
"Was it you that found him ?" "No, it was Charles Guille of Clos Bourel.

But I found something too." "What was it ?" "This"-- and from under his coat he drew out carefully the white stone with its red-brown spots, and from his pocket the button and the scrap of blue cloth.