ybody was concerning the affair did not allow of
doubt, for doubt is a thing that demands motives. People do not doubt
without reasons in the same way that people believe without reasons. The
thing was not doubted because it was repeated everywhere and, with the
public, to repeat is to prove. It was not doubted because people wished
to believe Pyrot guilty and one believes what one wishes to believe.
Finally, it was not doubted because the faculty of doubt is rare amongst
men; very few minds carry in them its germs and these are not developed
without cultivation. Doubt is singular, exquisite, philosophic, immoral,
transcendent, monstrous, full of malignity, injurious to persons and
to property, contrary to the good order of governments, and to the
prosperity of empires, fatal to humanity, destructive of the gods, held
in horror by heaven and earth. The mass of the Penguins were ignorant
of doubt: it believed in Pyrot's guilt and this conviction immediately
became one of its chief national beliefs and an essential truth in its
patriotic creed.

Pyrot was tried secretly and condemned.

General Panther immediately went to the Minister of War to tell him the
result.

"Luckily," said he, "the judges were certain, for they had no proofs."

"Proofs," muttered Greatauk, "Proofs, what do they prove? There is only
one certain, irrefragable proof--the confession of the guilty person.
Has Pyrot confessed?"

"No, General."

"He will confess, he ought to. Panther, we must induce him; tell him it
is to his interest. Promise him that, if he confesses, he will obtain
favours, a reduction of his sentence, full pardon; promise him that if
he confesses his innocence will be admitted, that he will be decorated.
Appeal to his good feelings. Let him confess from patriotism, for the
flag, for the sake of order, from respect for the hierarchy, at the
special command of the Minister of War militarily. . . . But tell me,
Panther, has he not confessed already? There are tacit confessions;
silence is a confession."

"But, General, he is not silent; he keeps on squealing like a pig that
he is innocent."

"Panther, the confessions of a guilty man sometimes result from the
vehemence of his denials. To deny desperately is to confess. Pyrot has
confessed; we must have witnesses of his confessions, justice requires
them."

There was in Western Penguinia a seaport called La Cirque, formed of
three small bays and formerly greatly frequented by