Romance

'Thank God, my turn's come at last!'

The faces of the Attorney-General, the King's Advocate, Sir Robert Gifford, Mr. Lawes, Mr. Jervis, of all the seven counsel that were arrayed to crush me, lengthened into simultaneous grins, varying at the jury-box. But I didn't care; I grinned, too. I was going to show them.

It was as if I flew at the throat of that little man. It seemed to me that I must be able to crush a creature whose malice was as obvious and as nugatory as the green and red rings that he exhibited in his hair every few minutes. He wanted to show the jury that he had rings; that he was a mincing swell; that I hadn't and that I was a bloody pirate. I said:

'You know that during the whole two years Nichols was at Rio I was an improver at Horton Pen with the Macdonalds, the agents of my brother-in-law, Sir Ralph Rooksby. You must know these things. You were one of the Duke of Manchester's spies.'

We used to call the Duke's privy council that. 'I certainly know nothing of the sort,' he said, folding his hands along the edge of the witness-box, as if he had just thought of exhibiting his rings in that manner. He was abominably cool. I said:

'You must have heard of me. The Topnambos knew me.'

'The Topnambos used to talk of a blackguard with a name like Kemp who kept himself mighty out of the way in the Vale.'

'You knew I was on the island,' I pinned him down.

'You used to come to the island,' he corrected. 'I've just explained how. But you were not there much, or we should have been able to lay hands on you. We wanted to. There was a warrant out after you tried to murder us. But you had been smuggled away by Ramon.'

I tried again:

'You have heard of my brother-in-law, Sir Ralph Rooksby?'

I wanted to show that, if I hadn't rings, I had relations.

'Nevah heard of the man in my life,' he said.

'He was the largest land proprietor on the island,' I said.

'Dessay,' he said; 'I knew forty of the largest. Mostly sharpers in the boosing-kens.' He yawned.

I said viciously:

'It was your place to know the island. You knew Horton Pen—the Macdonalds?'

The face of jolly old Mrs. Mac. came to my mind—the impeccable, Scotch, sober respectability.

'Oh, I knew the Macdonalds,' he said—'of them. The uncle was a damn rebellious, canting, planting Scotchman. Horton Pen was the centre of the Separation Movement. We could have hung him if we'd wanted to. The nephew was the writer of an odious blackmailing print. He calumniated all the decent, loyal inhabitants. He was an agent of you pirates, too. We arrested him—got his papers; know all about your relations with him.'

I said, 'That's all nonsense. Let us hear'—the Attorney-General had always said that—'what you know of myself.'

'What I know of you,' he sniffed, 'if it's a pleasuah, was something like this. You came to the island in a mysterious way, gave out that you were an earl's son, and tried to get into the very excellent society of... ah... people like my friends, the Topnambos. But they would not have you, and after that you kept yourself mighty close; no one ever saw you but once or twice, and then it was riding about at night with that humpbacked scoundrel of a blackmailer.

'You, in fact, weren't on the island at all, except when you came to spy for the pirates. You used to have long confabulations with that scoundrel Ramon, who kept you posted about the shipping. As for the blackmailer, with the humpback, David Macdonald, you kept him, you... ah... subsidized his filthy print to foment mutiny and murder among the black fellows, and preach separation. You wanted to tie our hands, and prevent our... ah... prosecuting the preventive measures against you. When you found that it was no good you tried to murder the admiral and myself, and that very excellent man Topnambo, coming from a ball. After that you were seen encouraging seven of your... ah... pirate fellows whom we were hanging, and you drove off in haste with your agent, Ramon, before we could lay hands on you, and vanished from the island.'

I didn't lose my grip; I went at him again, blindly, as if I were boxing with my eyes full of blood, but my teeth set tight. I said:

'You used to buy things yourself of old Ramon; bought them for the admiral to load his frigates with; things he sold at Key West.'

'That was one of the lies your scoundrel David Macdonald circulated against us.'

'You bought things... even whilst you were having his store watched.'

'Upon my soul!' he said.

'You used to buy things....' I pinned him. He looked suddenly at the King's Advocate, then dropped his eyes.

'Nevah bought a thing in my life,' he said.

I knew the man had; Ramon had told me of his buying for the admiral more than three hundred barrels of damaged coffee for thirty pounds. I was in a mad temper. I smashed my hand upon the spikes of the rail in front of me, and although I saw hands move impulsively towards me all over the court, I did not know that my arm was impaled and the blood running down.

'Perjurer,' I shouted, 'Ramon himself told me.'

'Ah, you were mighty thick with Ramon...' he said.