“You have called yourself Il Señor Roland da Castel, sir?” said the official, staring fixedly upon him. “Have you always gone by this name?”
“In Mexico and the New World I was ever known as such. In England men called me Roland Cashel.”
“Which is your more fitting appellation—is it not?”
“Yes.”
“You are then an English, and not a Spanish subject?”
He nodded assent.
“You were, however, in a South American service?” said the prefetto, reading from his paper.
Roland bowed again.
“In which service, or pretended service, you commanded a slaver?”
“This is untrue,” said Cashel, calmly.