The sergeant wanted to know what I was doing. I told him that I was conducting a boxing tournament for the benefit of something or other. He asked if I had "official permission," and I admitted that I had overlooked this formality.
"Then you are inciting riot and rebellion," he said in his clipped English. "I arrest you in the name of the King!"
At this, Sugden commenced to laugh. This was a great mistake, since the black sergeant seemed to think that we were scoffing at the king. Without more ado, he invited us to accompany him to the court.
"This, my dear sirs," he said severely, "is a very serious matter. It is not allowed to stir up strife in His Majesty's colonies."
The court was in an old-style Spanish house, and the room was vacant except for buzzing flies. These zoomed like infant meteors through the narrow streaks of sunlight from the long windows. The benches were worn and comfortable, and I remember dropping off to sleep with the thought that even these flies had more luck than we did, since they had sunlight and fresh air, while our home was that dreadful steerage hole.
I was awakened by Sugden's elbow. There on the high bench sat a thin old gentleman all in white. He had a thin hooked nose much like an eagle's beak, and his eyes were of the well-known gimlet type. As I took him in, the sergeant was reciting the charge against us.
"These are desperate men," I heard him say, "from the ship now in the harbor. They were in the St. Lucia Hotel and were—"
"Yes! Yes!" interrupted the thin magistrate in a voice as sharp as his nose. "But what is the charge? What have they done? Never mind the oration; get to the charge!"
By this time I was wide awake. I suddenly came to a full realization that I was one of those "desperate men" and found myself deeply interested.
"They were inciting riot and rebellion," the sergeant went on, undaunted by the magistrate's impatience. "A boy ran to the police-station and said murders were being done at the hotel. I called out all the police and went there as fast as we could run. Inside the billiard-room were hundreds of whites and blacks, all shouting with their desire for blood. On the billiard-table were two black men trying to kill one another. As I watched, one struck the other. He fell from the table and the crowd cheered.