The Trial for Murder; Part III

Charles Dickens brings us one of the first ghost stories to ever be widely published. A wonderful story combining a murder trial and ghosts.

Intermediate

Read and listen to this story in Beelinguapp!

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say, “Here!” Now, observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner’s wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that the prisoner’s first affrighted words to him were: “At all hazards, challenge that man!”. But that, as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done.