"You may explain how that came to be," intimated Duff Salter, grimly superintending the court.
"Well, sir! As I dived from the skiff my head encountered a solid something which made me see a thousand flashes av lightning in one second. I was so stunned that I had only instinct—I belave ye call it that—to throw my ar-rum around the murthering object and hold like death. Ye know, judge, how drownin' men will hold to straws. That straw, yer Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin' through the water. It was, I found out afterward, one of the pieces which had wedged the ship on the Marine Railway, where she had been gettin' repaired, and she comin' off hurriedly about dusk, had not been loosened from her. I raised my voice by a despairin' effort, and screamed 'Help! help!' When I came to I was on an Austrian merchant ship, bound to Wilmington, North Carolina, for naval stores, and then to Trieste. The blow of the spar had given me a slight crack av the skull."
"That crack is wide open yet," said Calvin Van de Lear.
"Begorra," returned the Irishman, facing placidly around until he found the owner of the voice, "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it would take many such a blow, sur, to fracture your heart!"
"Go on now, Donovan, and finish your tale. You were carried off to Trieste?" spoke Duff Salter.
"I was, sir. At Wilmington no news had been recaved of any tragedy in Philadelphia, and when I told my story there to a gentleman he concluded I was ravin' and a seein' delusions. The Austrian was short av a crew, and the docthor said if they could get away to sea he could make me effective very soon. I was too helpless to go on deck or make resistance. Says I, 'It's the will av God.'"
A round of applause greeted this story as it was ended, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, exclaimed:
"Alderman, what has all this to do with the prisoner's ignominious flight for months from his home and from persons he abandoned to suspicion and shame? This man is an impostor."
"Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane?" asked Duff Salter.
"No," replied the late fugitive. "I have been hunted and slandered like a wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been so shamefully treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I will speak."