clerk read,
"of the British came within ten yards. The said Nikola then exclaimed,
'Curse the bloodthirsty hounds,' and fired the grapeshot into the boat.
Seven were killed by that discharge. This I saw with my own eyes....
Signed, Isidoro Alemanno." And another swore, "The said Nikola was
below, but he came running up, and with one blow of his knife severed
the throat of the man who was kneeling on the deck...."

There was no doubt that Nikola had committed these crimes; that the
witnesses had sworn to them and signed the deposition.... The old judge
had evidently never seen him, and now O'Brien and the _Lugareno_ had
sworn that I was Nikola el Escoces, alias El Demonio.

My first impulse was to shout with rage; but I checked it because I knew
I should be silenced. I said:

"I am not Nikola el Escoces. That I can easily prove."

The Judge of the First Instance shrugged his shoulders and looked, with
implicit trust, up into O'Brien's face.

"That man," I pointed at the _Lugareno_, "is a pirate. And, what is
more, he is in the pay of the Senor Juez O'Brien. He was the lieutenant
of a man called Manuel-del-Popolo, who commanded the _Lugarenos_ after
Nikola left Rio Medio."

"You know very much about the pirates," the _Juez_ said, with the
sardonic air of a very stupid man. "Without doubt you were intimate with
them. I sign now your order for committal to the _carcel_ of the Marine
Court."

I said, "But I tell you I am not Nikola...."

The _Juez_ said impassively, "You pass out of my hands into those of the
Marine Court. I am satisfied that you are a person deserving of a trial.
That is the limit of my responsibility."

I shouted then, "But I tell you this O'Brien is my personal enemy."

The old man smiled acidly.

"The senor need fear nothing of our courts. He will be handed over to
his own countrymen. Without doubt of them he will obtain justice." He
signed to the _Lugareno_ to go, and rose, gathering up his papers;
he bowed to O'Brien. "I leave the criminal at the disposal of your
worship," he said, and went out with his clerk.

O'Brien sent out the two soldiers after him, and stood there alone. He
had never been so near his death. But for sheer curiosity, for my sheer
desire to know what he _could_ say, I would have smashed in his brains
with the clerk's stool. I was going to do it; I made one step towards
the stool. Then I saw that he was crying.

"The curse--the curse of Cromwell on you," he sobbed s