"You hear the question, Jasper Pennington," said Admiral Trefry; "will you tell what you have been doing these last two months and more?"
But I held my peace, and seeing this the justices conversed one with another. Had they all been of Richard Tresidder's way of thinking I should have been sent to Bodmin Gaol to wait the next assizes without further ado; but Admiral Trefry, who was uncle to Lawyer Trefry, wanted to befriend me, and so I was allowed opportunities for befriending myself which would not have been given to me had my enemy been allowed his way.
Presently a thought struck me which at the time seemed very feasible, and I wondered that I had not thought of it in the earlier part of the trial.
"May I be allowed to ask the Preventive men a few questions?" I asked.
"You may," replied the Admiral. "You can ask them questions as to their evidence by which you are accused of attempting to lure a vessel on to destruction."
"I would like to ask, first of all, what I should gain by doing this? What would it profit me to wreck a vessel?"
The Preventive man who had been the chief spokesman seemed a little confused, then he said, with a great deal of assurance, "I believe, your worship, that he is one of a gang of desperadoes and wreckers who live over by Kynance."
"May I ask," I said, "what reason he has for believing this?"
"Your worship," said the officer, "we know that there is a gang of men who infest the coast. For a long time we have tried to lay hands on them in vain. They are very cunning, and, although we have suspicions, we as yet have not been able to bring any positive evidence against them, and we believe that he is associated with them."