“Listen to her. Listen to her. Oh, the liar, when she carried it upstairs with her own hands,” cried the hag.
“Go upstairs and see if it’s there,” he told his man, who went and returned carrying it.
“The woman was right in that,” said the officer significantly.
“She would very naturally know where she herself took it,” I exclaimed; but he was as pig-headed as his class, and repeated his statements, adding to my concern, “I don’t see how I can decide this. It’s beyond me.”
“There are my papers,” I reminded him. “But surely you have only to look at that man and his wife, and contrast them with my sister and myself to see the difference. You must have some description of them.”
He mumbled to himself and began to finger my papers. “I don’t see anything here to guide me.”
“Those are the passports;” and I pointed to them.
He unfolded them. “I don’t read English,” he said.
“You can read the names at any rate and, of course, as a responsible official so near the frontier you know a passport by sight.”
“He stole that from an Englishman. He boasted of it to us,” interjected the woman, who had been watching closely.