"Hope!" Gramont said. "Hope! What should I hope? Nothing! in truth. No more than I fear aught. I am the man this one charges me with being--am Gramont. That is enough. Gramont, the filibuster--one of a hundred of your countrymen, of Frenchmen, of Englishmen. But," and he glanced proudly around the court, "the leader of them all, of almost all. Yet, if I am guilty, who is there in the Indies that is innocent? Was Morgan, the English bulldog?--yet his king made him deputy-governor of his fairest isle. Was Basco, Lolonois--is Pointis? Answer me that. And, you of Spain, you, one of her bishops, you, one of her soldiers," and he glanced at each of them, "how often has one of you blessed the ships that sailed from your shores laden with men of my calling--how often have men of your trade," again he glanced at Morales, "belonged to mine? Yet now I, a Frenchman, a comrade in arms of you Spanish, am judged by the words of such as that"--and this time his eyes fell on Eaton.
Also all in the court looked at him again.
"Now," went on Gramont, "hear who and what he is--hear, too, how he knows all that I have done. He was my servant--my ship's steward once--then rose through lust of cruelty to be my mate and second in command. And he it was who first whispered that the captured monks and priests, as he terms them, should be sent against the monastery at Essequibo. Only--he has forgotten, his memory fails--they were not monks and priests--but nuns."
"No, no, no!" shrieked Eaton, as a tumult indescribable arose within the court, while now the mountaineers and seamen howled, "burn him and let the other go," and the fierce dark-eyed women clutched their babes closer to their breasts, fingering the hilts of the knives in their girdles at the same time.
"Nuns! Holy nuns!" the Bishop gasped. "Great God!"
"Ay! Holy nuns. And hear one more word from me; it is the truth, though it avails me nothing. I was not at Essequibo then, was far away, was, in truth, at Cape Blanco. And he--he--James Eaton, was the man."
There rose more tumult and more uproar--it seemed as though all the men in the court would force the barrier that separated them from the judges and from Eaton and us, the prisoners--would slay that villain, that monstrous wretch, upon the spot. But at a look from the Alcáide some of the alguazils and men-at-arms by that barrier, thrust and pushed them back, and made a line between them and the body of the court.
"Again listen," Gramont went on, when some silence had at last been obtained. "It is my last word. I was not there--was gone--the band was broken up, dispersed. From Spain had come an order from your king that those who desisted were to be pardoned; from Louis of France came the same news by Pointis. And I was one who so desisted, took service under Louis, was made his lieutenant. Also I was on my way to France when I was cast away. Cast away, after leaving my child, my wealth, in that man's hands for safe keeping. He drove the one from him with curses and cruelty, he stole the other. And--hear more--those galleons coming to Cadiz were bringing that stolen wealth to him--because I knew that it was so I came in them to Spain, hoping by my disguise to meet him, to wrench it back from him, to call him to account for his treatment of my girl."
On the court there had come a hush--as the calm comes after the storm; hardly any spoke now--yet all, from Bishop downward, regarded Eaton, trembling, shivering there.
And once more in that hush, Gramont's voice uprose again.