“Do you know the officer whom you have wounded?” asked the magistrate when he had finished.
“Of course, I do, as I have made the voyage with him. He is Lieut. Champcey.”
“Have you any complaint against him?”
“None at all.”
Then he added in a tone of bitterness and resentment,—
“What relations do you think could there be between a poor devil like myself and a great personage like him? Would he have condescended even to look at me? Would I have dared to speak to him? If I know him, it is only because I have seen him, from afar off, walk the quarter-deck with the other officers, a cigar in his mouth, after a good meal, while we in the forecastle had our salt fish, and broke our teeth with worm-eaten hard-tack.”
“So you had no reason to hate him?”
“None; as little as anybody else.”
Seated upon a wretched little footstool, his paper on his knees, an inkhorn in his hand, the clerk was rapidly taking down the questions and the answers. The magistrate made him a sign that it was ended, and then said, turning to the murderer,—
“That is enough for to-day. I am bound to tell you, that, having so far only kept you as a matter of precaution, I shall issue now an order for your arrest.”