leeves of his jumper, unbared to view on
his hairy skin the tattooed form of a naked mermaid. A table stood in
the center of the uncarpeted room, with a lawyer on either side--Purdy,
the goaty-haired, messy, elderly man, half-blind, sharp-voiced, rasping
out his case; opposite him, Thacher, a slinky, mean-looking young man,
who was reputed to have left New Zealand under a cloud. He looked what
he was, a cheap lawyer's clerk, of the pinched, hungry variety one sees
in gloomy anterooms. At the head of the table was Dillon, the
everlasting dictatee, his dyed black whiskers drooping in the heat, who
raised a fat hand from time to time as a brake on outstripping tongues.
And there the captain, the cause of all this singular assembly, tilting
back in his chair, or occasionally leaning over to whisper into his
counsel's ear--spare, angular, careworn--with his grim mouth and
resolute air, as though the soul within him refused to be cowed by such
droning tomfoolery.

Beside the front door was a shabby basket-work sofa, where members of
the public were entitled to sit. They would tiptoe in, these members of
the public, furtively, as though expecting to be shot on sight, the
bolder ones perhaps exchanging a whisper, the weaker brethren silent,
and trembling if they caught an official eye. Outside, on the steps of
the broad veranda, the brothers Scanlon lolled and slumbered, with
pewter stars on their sweaty breasts, enjoying the deep contentment that
comes with two dollars and fifty cents a day.

The trial lasted two days, but judgment was held over for the third. The
case against Satterlee was complete. The San Francisco affidavits,
properly made out by competent hands, were confirmed by the confession
of Ah Foy, the cook, who (besides Satterlee) was the only present member
of the original crew. Satterlee set up the lame defense that he had
purchased the vessel from Crawford, and was therefore her actual owner.
He was sworn, and gave evidence accordingly, but Purdy's
cross-examination left him without a leg to stand on. He cut a pitiful
figure as he floundered and lied and contradicted himself under the lash
of that relentless tongue, miring himself ever deeper with explanations
that did not explain, and agitated references to a "conspiracy" whose
object it was to ruin him. No, the only thing to be considered was the
degree of punishment that would adequately offset his crime.

On the reassembling of the Court on the morning of