"Ask him," said Bruno, "if the denunciation he speaks of was not dictated by himself."
"The prisoner," said the Director, "made the denunciation voluntarily, and I rose from my bed to receive it at his urgent request."
"Ask him if I said one word to denounce David Rossi."
"The prisoner had made statements to a fellow-prisoner, and these were embodied in the document he signed."
The advocate Fuselli interposed. "Then the Court is to understand that the Director who dictated this denunciation knew nothing from the prisoner himself?"
The Director hesitated, stammered, and finally admitted that it was so. "I was inspired by a sentiment of justice," he said. "I acted from duty."
"This man fed me on bread and water," cried Bruno. "He put me in the punishment cells and tortured me in the strait-waistcoat with pains and sufferings like Jesus Christ's, and when he had reduced my body and destroyed my soul he dictated a denunciation of my dearest friend and my unconscious fingers signed it."
"Don't shout so loud," said the president.
"I'll shout as loud as I like," said Bruno, and everybody turned to look at him. It was useless to protest. Something seemed to say that no power on earth could touch a man in a mood like that.
The next witness was the chief warder. He deposed that he was present at the denunciation, that it was made voluntarily, and that no pressure whatever was put upon the prisoner.