Also, not content with all this, I was on my way through the land, gleaning evidence of all that was taking place within it, so as to furnish, as none could otherwise suppose, information to my countrymen when I should reach them.
No need for my trial to be spun out; one alone of all these facts was enough to condemn me, and, after a whispered conference between the Alcáide, the Regidór and the Bishop, the latter delivered the above sentence, his voice almost inaudible because of his great age, yet strong enough for the purpose--powerful enough to reach my ears and those of the small crowd within the court house; that was sufficient.
So I knew my fate, and knew, too, that it was useless to say aught, to utter one word. I had lost the game; the stakes would have to be paid in full.
Then began the unravelling of the history of him who stood beside me--swarthy, contemptuous--his eyes glancing around that court, alighting at one moment on the withered form and cadaverous face of the Bishop, at another on the figure of the Regidór, a moment later on the Alcáide, a younger, well favoured man, whom I guessed a soldier in the past or present.
Gramont's condemnation was assured by the part he had played on that night when he assisted us on the road 'twixt Chantada and Lugo. That alone would have forfeited his life amidst these Spaniards; yet, perhaps from curiosity, perhaps because even they doubted whether so summary an execution, and one so horrible, was merited by that night's work, they decided to hear the denouncement of Eaton, the story of Gramont's past life. They bade the former speak, tell all.
And what a story it was he told!
Sitting in a chair near the Bishop, looking nearly as old as that old man himself, he poured out horror after horror; branded the man by my side as one too steeped in cruelty to be allowed to live another hour, if what he said was, indeed, true.
Told how this man had ravaged all the Spanish main--had besieged Martinique, Nombre de Diós, Campeachy, and scores of other places, shedding blood like water everywhere--had sunk and plundered ships; burnt them and the men in them--burnt them alive; gave instances, too, of cruelty extreme.
"I have known him to tie dead and living together and fling them to the sharks," he said--"dead and living Spaniards! Also hang them to the bowsprit by a cord round their waists, a knife placed in one hand, so that, while freedom was theirs if they chose to sever the rope, a worse death awaited them when they fell into the water--a death from sharks, from alligators! Oh, sir, oh, reverend prelate," he continued, stretching out his hands toward the old, almost blind man, "I have seen worse than this. Once he and his followers besieged a monastery full of holy fathers, governed by a bishop saintly as yourself; and they defended it vigorously, bravely--would have driven this tiger back but for one thing."
"What?" asked the younger of the judges, the Alcáide. And I noticed that now, as all through this testifying of Eaton, that Alcáide seemed less disposed to accept his evidence than the others were. Later on I knew the reason that so urged him.