Seeing that I was not to be over-awed by his arrogance or to be brow-beaten he modified his attitude. This spirited bout sobered the tribunal, and the trial proceeded more smoothly, except for a few outbursts now and again which were sharp and pointed while they lasted.
"Well, we will provide you with an interpreter," he continued in a more placid tone, "but we still hold the opinion that you can speak and understand German!"
There was delay for a few minutes. Then the door opened and a second later my interpreter stood beside me. How it was I did not jump into the air I do not know, because the man summoned to assist me was none other than the mysterious prisoner with whom I had been talking in the mute alphabet.
This dénouement almost unnerved me. I was now more positive than ever that he had been deputed to spy upon me in prison. I looked at him askance, but received not the slightest sign of recognition. I had refused to entrust my cause to counsel and now I was placed in the hands of an interpreter who, if he so desired, could wreak much more damage by twisting the translations from English to suit his own ends.
As events proved, however, I could not have been in better hands. He was highly intelligent, and he interpreted my statements with a fluency and accuracy which were astonishing. Only now and again did he stumble and hesitate. This was when he was presented with an unfamiliar expression or idiomatic sentence.
As the trial proceeded I gained an interesting side-light upon German methods and the mutual distrust which exists. Ostensibly, and so I was led to believe, none of the Tribunal spoke English with any fluency, but when, on one occasion, my interpreter was floored by a particularly difficult colloquialism which I uttered, the Clerk of the Court came to his aid, and in a moment turned the sentence properly to convey my exact meaning. This revelation placed me on my guard more than ever, because it was brought home to me very convincingly that if my interpreter tended to lean unduly towards me, he himself would be in serious jeopardy. Later, during the trial, I discovered that the Clerk spoke and understood English as well as I did. It was a telling illustration of the German practice of spying upon one another.
The first part of the trial was taken up with a repetition of the numerous questions I had already answered times out of number, accompanied by a more searching cross-examination. As the trial proceeded I saw that the authorities had collected every vestige of evidence from every official who had questioned me and with whom I had held any conversation.
There was one exciting moment. An officer, evidently of high rank, entered the room. He looked at me in a manner which I resented. With a sneering grin he enquired,
"Englander? Ha! Ha! Spion? What are you doing here?"
"I have come at the pressing invitation of four gentlemen with four points!" I suavely replied.