CHAPTER XVIII
Trial
After breakfast Bertram attended Court, which was a table under a tree, and took his seat on the Bench, an inverted pail, as a Ruler and a Judge, for the first and last time in his life. He felt that it was a strange and terrible thing that he should thus be suddenly called upon to try a man for his life.
Suppose that his two fellow-judges, Berners and Clarence, disagreed as to the death-sentence, and he had to give his verdict, knowing that a man’s life depended on it! . . .
A couple of askaris of the King’s African Rifles, police-orderlies of “Leesey” Lindsay’s, brought in the prisoner. He was a powerful and decidedly evil-looking negro, clad in a striped petticoat. He had more of the appearance of furtive intelligence than is usual with shenzis of his tribe. Bertram decided that he carried his guilt in his face and had trickster and traitor written all over it. He then rebuked himself for pre-judging the case and entertaining prejudice against an untried, and possibly innocent, man.
“Guilty,” said Augustus Gus. “Who’s coming for a walk?”
“I’m President of this Court,” replied Berners. “Who asked you to open your head? If I’m not sure as to his guilt, I may consult you later. Or I may not.”
“Look here, Berners—let’s do the thing properly,” was the reply. “There’s a Maxim—or is it a Hotchkiss—of English Law which says that a man is to be considered Guilty until he is proved to be Innocent. Therefore we start fair. He is Guilty, I say. Now we’ve got to prove him Innocent. Do be a sport, and give the poor blighter a show.”
“I b’lieve it’s the other way about,” said Berners.
“Oh, indeed!” commented Augustus. “You’d say the feller’s innocent and then start in to prove him guilty, would you? . . . Dirty trick, I call it. Filthy habit.”
Wavell appeared at the entrance to his tent, holding a green, silk-covered book in his hand. The cover was richly embroidered and had a flap, like that of an envelope, provided with strings for tying it down. It was a copy of the Koran, and on it all witnesses were sworn, repeating an oath administered by Wavell in Arabic. . . .