“Come,” he cried, sharply. “Who knows anything about this affair?”
“I do,” asserted the man with the cock-eye, summoning courage to step forward a bit. “And here are others.”
“Which ones?”
“Him, and him, and him,” answered the crooked-eyed man, jabbing a pudgy and none too clean forefinger at the gallant man, the little man, and the bobbing man, although he seemed to look at three entirely different persons from those he named.
The gallant man was perspiring, and looked as if he longed to escape. He also seemed anxious over the non-appearance of the veiled lady.
The bobbing man took a step backward, but somebody pushed him from behind, and he bobbed himself nearly double.
The little man tugged at his fluttering whiskers, looking to the right and left, as if thinking of dodging and attempting to escape in a hurry.
“And these are the witnesses?” said the sergeant, his eyes seeming to pierce them through and through. “Their testimony against you shall be carefully heard, Mr. Merriwell, and it will be well for them to be careful about giving it.”
“If I understand what is proper,” said the cock-eyed man, who seemed the only one who dared speak outright, “this is not the court, and you are not the judge.”
But he subsided before the piercing eyes of the sergeant, so that his final words were scarcely more than a gurgle in his throat.