“The Cadi sleeps. The Law regards him not.”
In a pocket of the Cadi’s coat, which lay near, we found the picture of a pretty girl. On it was written:
“To dearest Stewart, from Alice.”
Barlas’s face was stern and drawn. He looked at us from under his shaggy brows.
“There’s a Court to be opened,” he said. “Do you stand for law or justice?”
“For justice,” we replied.
Four days later in a ravine at Budgery-Gar a big camp of blacks were feasting. With loathsome pantomime they were re-enacting the murders they had committed within the past few days; murders of innocent white women and children, and good men and true—among them the Cadi, God help him! Great fires were burning in the centre of the camp, and the bodies of the black devils writhed with hideous colour in the glare. Effigies of murdered whites were speared and mangled with brutal cries, and then black women of the camp were brought out, and mockeries of unnameable horrors were performed. Hell had emptied forth its carrion.
But twelve bitter white men looked down upon this scene from the scrub and rocks above, and their teeth were set. Barlas, their leader, turned to them and said: “This court is open. Are you ready?”
The click of twelve rifles was the reply.
When these twelve white jurymen rode away from the ravine there was not one but believed that justice had been done by the High Court of Budgery-Gar.