In compliance with the request contained in the above note, I left the Court, drove off as rapidly as possible, and communicated my friend's wishes to his servant, who immediately hastened to fulfil them. By the time I returned to the Court the first witness was under examination. Such a waste of time! Such a trial to the temper of all present! Instead of allowing the Senior Captain to state the facts—and he would have done so in less than three minutes—and then take them down on paper, each question was written on a slip of paper, and submitted to the President, by the Deputy-Judge-Advocate, who showed it to the officers sitting on either side of him, who nodded assent. The question was then read aloud to the witness:—
"Were you present on the night of the 10th of April, at the mess-table of her Majesty's —— Regiment of Foot?"
The Captain replied, "I was."
The question and answer were then copied into "the book," and the slip of paper on which the question was originally written was torn up. This occupied (for the Deputy-Judge-Advocate was not a rapid writer, and was apparently in no particular hurry, being a man of very equable temperament) eight minutes. The second question was put in precisely the same way, the same ceremonies having been gone through. The second question was:—
"Were the prisoners present on that occasion?"
"They were," replied the Captain.
Again the copying process went on, slowly and methodically, and Blade, who was still playing odd and even, called out in a loud voice, to make it appear that he was giving up his mind entirely to the investigation:—
"What was the answer? I did not hear it distinctly; be so good as to request the witness to speak up."
"He said, 'They were,'" returned the Deputy-Judge-Advocate-General.
"Oh! 'They were,'" repeated Blade; writing down a mark, signifying that he had just lost four rupees.