"Do you remember meeting a merchantman from Bremen?"
"Don't I? Don't I remember the generous gentleman! We met him near the Cape of Good Hope. That point of land hasn't got its name for nothing! It brought 'good hope' back to us! We were in tatters; the stormy weather; long voyage; and many hardships had reduced our frames to skeletons, our clothing to rags. When the brave man—blessed be his memory!—came up with us, and saw our nakedness, he took off his own coat and gave it to me—may heaven's blessings rest on him wherever he may be!"
"He tells quite a different story," responded the chair. "On his return home, he complained to the Hansa League that a boat load of pirates was sailing the high-seas, plundering, and levying contributions, from all vessels it met. He also related how the pirates had taken all his, as well as his crew's clothing. This must be true; for no Bremen trader has ever been known willingly to give coat of his to anyone. Bremen is not far away. We can summon the complainant—whose name, I believe, is Schulze—and let him tell his story here—"
"May I beg that your honor"—quickly interposed the prisoner—"will at the same time summon the witnesses who will testify for me? They are, the Spanish merchant Don Rodriguez di Saldayeni, from Badajos; the Russian captain, Bello Bratanow Zwonimir Tschinowink, from Kamtschatka; the Italian, Signor Sparafucile Odoards, from Palermo; the Turk, Ali Baba Ben Didimi Effendi, from Brusa; the Chinese mandarin, Chien-Tsen-Triping-Van, from Shanghai; the Greek, Heros Leonidas Karaiskakis, from Tricala; the—"
"Enough! enough!" roared the mayor clapping his hands to his ears. "I don't want to hear another name. Rather will I believe every word you say! You were sea-beggars, impoverished voyagers—anything but pirates! Will your highness permit us to erase also this indictment from the register?" The prince assenting, his honor added: "Now we will hear how the crime of cannibalism will be disposed of."
"I will first take the liberty to remind the honorable gentlemen of the court, that anthropophagy is not at all times considered a capital crime. The inhabitants of the Fiji Islands look upon it as the only proper method to dispose of a captured foe. The eating of human flesh is a part of the religious cult of the Mexicans; and during the Tartar invasion of Hungary, the people—as Rogerius proves—who had been robbed of the necessaries of life, were forced to eat each other. To such a condition of starvation we were also reduced, a fearful hurricane having compelled us, while on the Pacific ocean, to throw overboard all our stores in order to prevent the boat from sinking—"
"Now you are telling another story," thundered the chair. "You say you were on the Pacific ocean. If it is a pacific ocean how is it possible that such a storm as you describe raged there? You shall be bound to the wheel, if you don't confess at once that hurricanes never rage on the Pacific Ocean."
Your honor is right—my memory served me ill—there are no such storms on the Pacific Ocean. But there are sharks. The voracious beasts surrounded our boat in such numbers that, in order to prevent them from eating us, we gave them all our provisions, hoping to fall in with a kind-hearted captain who would replenish our larder. But we didn't meet a single ship. For two whole weeks we managed to keep alive by eating our boots, and not until the last pair had been devoured, did we decide to resort to the "sailor's lunch," and cast lots which of us should be served up as such.
My name was drawn, and I made up my mind to die calmly—pro bono publico. But, when I began to remove my clothes, the Spaniard to whom I had been chained on the "Alcyona," and for whom I entertained the affection of a brother, stepped forward and said:
"You shall not die, brave rajah. You have a wife—nay, two of them, to whom your life is valuable. Here am I—your brother, who will consider it a privilege, an honor—as did the brave Curtius when he galloped into the abyss to save the republic—to fling myself into these hungry throats!"