pointed at a small door
to the left. My heart was beating steadily. I felt a sort of intrepid
resignation.

PART FIFTH -- THE LOT OF MAN

CHAPTER ONE

"Why have I been brought here, your worships?" I asked, with a great
deal of firmness.

There were two figures in black, the one beside, the other behind a
large black table. I was placed in front of them, between two soldiers,
in the centre of a large, gaunt room, with bare, dirty walls, and the
arms of Spain above the judge's seat.

"You are before the _Juez de la Primiera Instancia_," said the man in
black beside the table. He wore a large and shadowy tricorn. "Be silent,
and respect the procedure."

It was, without doubt, excellent advice. He whispered some words in the
ear of the Judge of the First Instance. It was plain enough to me that
the judge was a quite inferior official, who merely decided whether
there were any case against the accused; he had, even to his clerk, an
air of timidity, of doubt.

I said, "But I insist on knowing...."

The clerk said, "In good time...." And then, in the same tone of
disinterested official routine, he spoke to the _Lugareno_, who, from
beside the door, rolled very frightened eyes from the judges and the
clerk to myself and the soldiers--"Advance."

The judge, in a hurried, perfunctory voice, put questions to the
_Lugareno_; the clerk scratched with a large quill on a sheet of paper.

"Where do you come from?"

"The town of Rio Medio, Excellency."

"Of what occupation?"

"Excellency--a few goats...."

"Why are you here?"

"My daughter, Excellency, married Pepe of the posada in the Calle...."

The judge said, "Yes, yes," with an unsanguine impatience. The
_Lugareno's_ dirty hands jumped nervously on the large rim of his limp
hat.

"You lodge a complaint against the senor there."

The clerk pointed the end of his quill towards me.

"I? God forbid, Excellency," the _Lugareno_ bleated. "The _Alguazil_ of
the Criminal Court instructed me to be watchful.

"You lodge an information, then?" the _juez_ said.

"Maybe it is an information, Excellency," the _Lugareno_ answered, "as
regards the senor there."

The _Alguazil_ of the Criminal Court had told him, and many other men
of Rio Medio, to be on the watch for me, "undoubtedly touching what had
happened, as all the world knew, in Rio Medio."

He looked me full in the face with stupid insolence, and said:

"At first I much doubted, for all the wo