"He will have Skinner before him, a haiduk in the rear, and me at the table; we'll show you sport, my boy!" said Mr. Kenihazy, with great glee. "And once in the midst of us, he'll confess, I'll answer for it."
The breakfast was over; and Kenihazy, wondering how any one could have the bad taste to drink coffee when such delicious wine and brandy could be got in Hungary, drank off a glass of brandy to wash the coffee down.
The justice rose and lighted his pipe, which he had laid aside during breakfast. He stalked up and down the room, trying the condition of his voice. He ordered the haiduks to be ready, and the prisoner to be brought before him at once.
The cook, to whom these orders were given, very curious to see the examination of the Jew, lost no time in executing the justice's mandate.
Mr. Kenihazy sat mending some pens; and his face was radiant with joy at having picked up a piece of coarse paper, on which he thought to take down the evidence, and by this means save the better paper allowed him by the county.
Mr. Skinner's manner of treating persons whom he suspected, was simple in the extreme. His inquisitorial powers vented themselves in abuse, imprecations, and kicks. Peti, the gipsy, and the treatment which he received at the justice's hands on the Turk's Hill, are by no means an unfavourable specimen of that worthy functionary's summary mode of dealing with the lowly and unprotected; and in the present instance, the poor Jew learned to his cost, that the worthy magistrate's jokes had lost nothing of their pungency, and that his kicks retained their pristine vigour. But if the justice was violent, the Jew was stubborn. Neither Mr. Skinner's stunning rejoinders, nor the striking arguments of the haiduk, whose stick played no mean part in court, could convince the culprit of the propriety of making (as Mr. Kenihazy said) "a clean breast of it." Nothing can equal Mr. Skinner's disgust and fury. He stamped and swore—as indeed he always did—but to no purpose.
"Dog!" cried he; "I'll have you thrown into the wolf-pit. I'll have you killed!" And kicking the Jew, he sent him staggering and stammering out his innocence against the wall. "Innocent!" cried the justice, with a savage laugh, "Does that fellow look as if he were innocent?"
Mr. Kenihazy and the cook stood laughing at the culprit, while the big tears ran down his cheek from his one eye.
There was nothing, however, in the Jew's appearance that could impress one with an idea of his innocence. His red hair, matted and wet from the damp of the cellar, hung longer and straighter down his forehead than usual. His dress and beard were in great filth and disorder. His ugly features were wild and haggard from the pain of his bonds, and the ill-treatment he had received from the justice and Mr. Kenihazy; in short, he looked like one of the coarse woodcuts of Cain in the story-books.
"I am innocent—I am not guilty!" blubbered the Jew. "I implore you! I intreat you, Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Kenihazy, and Mister Cook, who knows well——"