‘Bring up the prisoner!’ said my judge, and I was moved forward nearly to the table.
The clerk peered at me with his green eyes.
‘I think the fellow is like one of the gang of that notorious thief and murderer, called Morgan. If so, the proceedings need not last long; the individual called Morgan, and all his band, being already many times condemned for murder, sacrilege, treason, and robbery committed by them on the high seas, in the islands, on the main, and elsewhere.’
It was the clerk who spoke thus, in a thin squeak, like the cheeping of rusty iron.
‘I said, when I saw him last night,’ added the army officer, ‘that there was gallows written in the heretic’s face.’
‘Strong corroborative testimony that!’—said Don José, with a sneer, which he seemed not to think it worth the trouble to conceal. ‘Worthy alcaide, do you not think the case all but proved against the prisoner? My most astute friend, Lopez’—here he bowed to the clerk, who glanced back at him with wrathful eye,—‘and my warlike friend, Guzman’—here he indicated the scowling officer—‘seem inclined to save everybody, but the hangman, any trouble in the matter.’
The alcaide, whose perceptions appeared none of the quickest, looked from one to the other of the speakers, with a grim smile, and then asked whether I could talk Spanish; I answered I could; and so the examination began. I told very truly my name and country; I said I was a mariner on board a schooner, sailing under British colours. I added, that I had been seized by an armed boat, and dragged out of my own; that the assault had been made upon me and my boat, that there was no law or justice for it, and that the Spaniards well knew.
Now, although I took this tone, I was very well aware that it would serve me nothing. For, although England and Spain were at peace, yet so were never Englishmen or Spaniards to the south of the line; whichever fell into the other’s hands smarted for it; and that all of us knew right well, and I had made up my mind accordingly.
‘Friend,’ quoth the spiteful clerk, ‘do not choke yourself with big words, insomuch as we shall presently save you the trouble by means of a gallows, which ever standeth in the court-yard, with a convenient rope.’
‘I knew by his face it is what he would come to,’ replied Guzman.