“Is it?” cries Oskar quickly. And then throwing out his arm and pointing to the captain, he says:
“Look at him. The marks of my hands are on his throat at this moment.”
Instantly the captain drops his chin into his breast, but not before everybody on the bench has seen the black stamp of four fingers and a thumb on the man’s red throat.
The advocate for the defence rises and asks permission (things having gone so far) to call the other prisoners.
One by one the five are called and tell the same story—that when the horse-racing began the captain, who went to Belle Vue nearly every afternoon, enticed them to trust him with their stakes; but though they found out afterwards that their horses had often won, he had always lied to them and kept their money.
“Heine advised us to complain to the Commandant, but we decided to strip the man and search his pockets, and having a drop to drink we went further than we intended.”
“It’s a pack of lies,” roars the captain.
“No, it’s not that neither,” says a voice from behind the prisoners.
It is one of the guard who had brought the men to court, and stepping out of the bench at the back of the dock, he says:
“Swear me next, your Worship.”