A Gamble with Life

by Silas K. Hocking

"It looks as if he got the worst of it, at any rate."

"Does it not occur to you that your story does not hang well together? Is it likely that a soldier—or an ex-soldier, a man trained to the use of arms—would allow himself to be felled to the ground unless he were taken unawares?"

"Whether it is likely or not I have only stated the simple facts. Why should I attack him unawares, or attack him at all? His existence is a matter of supreme indifference to me. I should not have noticed him had he not charged me with conduct which I repudiate."

"But you refuse to say what it is he charged you with?"

"I do, and for the reasons I have already stated."

At this point the Captain's solicitor took up the running, and insisted that the case had been proved up to the very hilt. Timothy Polgarrow, a man of unimpeachable character, had sworn upon oath that he had served the accused with whiskies on the evening in question. Generally speaking, it was, no doubt, true, that the accused was a very temperate man. Hence, when he took drink at all, he the more quickly got out of bounds. An inveterate toper would have taken half-a-dozen whiskies, and carried a perfectly steady head. The accused was excited when he entered the "Three Anchors." Perhaps he had business worries. It was hinted that his schemes were hanging fire. Perhaps he had imbibed freely before he left Redbourne. People drank sometimes to drown their care. But the one clear fact was that he left the "Three Anchors" considerably the worse for liquor. Liquor makes some people hilarious, others it makes quarrelsome. The accused evidently belongs to the latter class. He was ready to fight anybody. As it happened, Captain Tregony, as he would still call him, though he had resigned his commission, was the first man he met. The Captain was taking a constitutional before dinner. It was a clear, frosty evening with plenty of starlight. The Captain was walking slowly with no thought of evil, when suddenly, out of the night, loomed the accused. The sequel you know. He fell upon the Captain unawares and struck him to the ground, and the chances are, in his drunken fury, would have murdered him, but for the timely assistance of Micah Martin.

The case was as simple and straightforward as any bench of magistrates could desire. The facts were borne out by independent testimony. There could be no shadow of doubt as to the drunkenness or the assault. The only matter to be considered was the measure of punishment to be meted out. They all agreed that drunkenness was no excuse for violence, while the offence was aggravated by a man in Rufus Sterne's position attacking a man of the rank of Captain Tregony.

One or two of the magistrates were for committing him to gaol without the option of a fine. It was a serious matter for a civilian to attack even an ex-soldier. It was a species of lèse majesté that ought not to be tolerated for a moment.

Unfortunately for these extremists a similar case had been tried a fortnight previously, and the accused—a man of considerable means—had got off with a fine of ten shillings and costs.

"And," argued the chairman, "we cannot with this case fresh in people's minds give colour to the fiction that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor."