"What he says is true".
Nothing availed to get other words than these out of the poor wretches' mouths, nor the magistrate's clever cross-questioning, nor my entreaties to tell the whole truth. I re-called to their memory the pitiful state they had been in when they ran into my house, crying and invoking justice. It was all in vain; but fortunately for them the legal officer himself was convinced that the Chinese—who stood by with a sarcastic smile upon his lips—was guilty, and closed the process by condemning him to six months' imprisonment.
A forest shooting-box.
p. [54].
I made up my mind to go to the bottom of the affair if only to discover why the Sakais, by nature so far removed from falsehood, had denied the truth.
My investigations proved that the Chinese had threatened to revenge himself by utterly destroying the whole family if they made any complaint about his way of proceeding, and had also terrified them by stories of the inhuman tortures to which they would be subjected by the British magistrate if they spoke against him.
The confession came too late because, if they had spoken in time the scoundrel would have had a much heavier sentence.
From this simple episode one can understand what an amount of energy, boldness, and resolution the English Authorities need in order to liberate the poor Sakais from the moral tyranny that still oppresses them. But the British Government is quite equal to the task it has undertaken, and there is no reason to doubt that before long it will have reduced to impotency these dregs of Society who creep in amongst the Sakai tribes, that are far removed from civilization and justice, there to work out their wicked schemes and practise their crafty wiles.