“Probably only a little while.”
“And can I take him up the shore and hang him as soon as you are done?”
“If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without unnecessary delay.”
“If he’s proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain’t he guilty? This beats my time. Why you all know he’s guilty.”
But at last they satisfied him that they were projecting nothing underhanded. Then he said:
“Well, all right. You go on and try him and I’ll go down and overhaul his conscience and prepare him to go—like enough he needs it, and I don’t want to send him off without a show for hereafter.”
This was another obstacle. They finally convinced him that it was necessary to have the accused in court. Then they said they would send a guard to bring him.
“No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself—he don’t get out of my hands. Besides, I’ve got to go to the ship to get a rope, anyway.”
The court assembled with due ceremony, empaneled a jury, and presently Capt. Ned entered, leading the prisoner with one hand and carrying a Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by the side of his captive and told the court to “up anchor and make sail.” Then he turned a searching eye on the jury, and detected Noakes’s friends, the two bullies.
He strode over and said to them confidentially: