f all Romance. I began to talk about old Don Balthasar
Riego. I began to talk about Manuel-del-Popolo, of his red shirt, his
black eyes, his mandolin; I saw again the light of his fires flicker on
the other side of the ravine in front of the cave.

And I rammed all that into my story, the story I was telling to that
young girl. I knew very well that I was carrying my audience with me;
I knew how to do it, I had it in the blood. The old pale, faded,
narrow-lidded father who was blinking and nodding at me had been one of
the best raconteurs that ever was. I knew how. In the black shadows of
the wall of the court I could feel the eyes upon me; I could see the
parted lips of the young girl as she leaned further towards me. I knew
it because, when one of the barristers below raised his voice, someone
hissed "S--sh" from the shadows. And suddenly it came into my head, that
even if I did save my life by talking about these things, it would be
absolutely useless. I could never go back again; never be the boy again;
never hear the true voice of the Ever Faithful Island. What did it
matter even if I escaped; even if I could go back? The sea would be
there, the sky, the silent dim hills, the listless surge; but _I_ should
never be there, I should be altered for good and all. I should never see
the breathless dawn in the pondwater of Havana harbour, never be
there with Seraphina close beside me in the little _drogher_. All
that remained was to see this fight through, and then have done with
fighting. I remember the intense bitterness of that feeling and the
oddity of it all; of the one "I" that felt like that, of the other that
was raving in front of a lot of open-eyed idiots, three old judges, and
a young girl. And, in a queer way, the thoughts of the one "I" floated
through into the words of the other, that seemed to be waving its hands
in its final struggle, a little way in front of me.

"Look at me... look at what they have made of me, one and the other of
them. I was an innocent boy. What am I now? They have taken my life from
me, let them finish it how they will, what does it matter to me, what do
I care?"

There was a rustle of motion all round the court. On board Rowley's
flagship the heavy irons had sawed open my wrists. I hadn't been ironed
in Newgate, but the things had healed up very little. I happened to look
down at my claws of hands with the grime of blood that the dock spikes
had caused.

"What sort of a premium