nswered with a peal of laughter. The president--he was a
bald-headed man with the heavy jaw of a bloodhound--looked at him
attentively for a moment, and then said to the men below:

"Go on."

The next witness was the Director of Regina C[oe]li. He deposed that the
prisoner had made a statement to him which he had taken down in writing.
This statement amounted to a denunciation of the Deputy David Rossi as
the real author of the crime of which he with others was charged.

After the denunciation had been read the president asked the prisoner if
he had any questions to put to the witness, and thereupon Bruno cried in
a loud voice:

"Of course I have. It is exactly what I've been waiting for."

He had risen to his feet, kicked over a chair which stood in front of
him, and folded his arms across his breast.

"Ask him," said Bruno, "if he sent for me late at night and promised my
pardon if I would denounce David Rossi."

"It was not so," said the Director. "All I did was to advise him not to
observe a useless silence which could only condemn him to further
imprisonment if by speaking the truth he could save himself and serve
the interests of justice."

"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 wa