“As many as you judge fit. The wild beast is bloodthirsty—a danger unless we glut him. At sight of this, tear up.”
Upon that, in a few words, he closed his lecture on jurisprudence, which had served its turn.
“In mercy let the trial now begin,” murmured the Offense at his side pointedly.
“Interrupt not, I beseech thee,” rejoined Yûsuf, giving sting for sting. He could not look upon those true believers he was doomed to wrong. Shame dropped a curtain at the edge of the dais. With eyes downcast upon a chaplet with which his hands kept toying, he asked, “Who accuses?”
“I am he,” returned the Christian; “on behalf of the illustrious consul of Her Britannic Majesty, and as representing one Jurjus Mekkuswell, a missionary doctor, who is a British subject.”
“Against whom, and of what nature, the accusation?”
“Against divers Circassians, colonists, from Jebel Ajlûn, for attacking the house of the hakìm and murdering one Ismaìl, his servant. But principally against the Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn El Attâr, likewise from Jebel Ajlûn, who instigated the said attack, the said murder.”
“The Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn El Attâr, is he present in the court?” cried the judge, without looking up from his beads.
“Present,” answered a full, clear voice.
“Are there any Circassians present in the court?”