that the facts were stated accurately as they
occurred, and that his reasons for the deed he declined to assert.

When once more questioned as to his country and his past by the
president, he briefly declined to give answer. When asked if the names
by which he was enrolled were his own, he replied that they were two of
his baptismal names, which had served his purpose on entering the army.
When asked if he accepted as true the charge of exciting sedition among
the troops, he replied that it was so little true that, over and over
again, the men would have mutinied if he had given them a sign, and that
he had continually induced them to submit to discipline sheerly by force
of his own example. When interrogated as to the cause of the language
he had used to his commanding officer, he said briefly that the language
deserved the strongest censure as for a soldier to his colonel, but that
it was justified as he had used it, which was as man to man, though
he was aware the plea availed nothing in military law, and was
impermissible for the safety of the service. When it was inquired of him
if he had not repeatedly inveighed against his commanding officer for
severity, he briefly denied it; no man had ever heard him say a syllable
that could have been construed into complaint; at the same time, he
observed that all the squadrons knew perfectly well personal enmity and
oppression had been shown him by his chief throughout the whole time of
his association with the regiment. When pressed as to the cause that he
assigned for this, he gave, in a few comprehensive outlines, the story
of the capture and the deliverance of the Emir's bride; this was all
that could be elicited from him; and even this was answered only out
of deference to the authority of the court, and from his unwillingness,
even now, to set a bad example before the men with whom he had served so
long. When it was finally demanded of him if he had aught to urge in his
own extenuation, he paused a moment, with a gaze under which even
the hard, eagle eyes grew restless, looked across to Chateauroy, and
addressed his antagonist rather than the president.

"Only this: that a tyrant, a liar, and a traducer cannot wonder if men
prefer death to submission beneath insult. But I am well aware this is
no vindication of my act as a soldier, and I have no desire to say words
which, whatever their truth, might become hereafter dangerous legacies,
and dangerous precedents to the a