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Havana: you have no passport. I beg of you to remain calm. These things are all in order."

I hadn't any doubt that, as far as he knew, he was speaking the truth. He was a man, very evidently, of a weary and naïve simplicity. Perhaps it was really true-that I should only have to explain; perhaps it was all over.

O'Brien came into the room with the casual step of an official from an office entering another's room.

It was as if seeing me were a thing that he very much disliked -at that he came because he wanted to satisfy himself of my existence, of my identity, and my being alone. The slow stare that he gave me did not mitigate the leisureliness of his entry. He walked behind the table; the judge rose with immense deference; with his eternal smile, and no word spoken, he motioned the judge to resume the examination; he stood looking at the clerk's notes meditatively, the smile still round lips that had a nervous tremble, and eyes that had dark marks beneath them. He seemed as if he were still smiling just after having been violently shaken. The judge went on examining the Lugareño.

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'Do you

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know whence the señor came?" "Excellency, excellency. . . The man stuttered, his eyes on O'Brien's face.

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Nor how long he was in the town of Rio Medio?" the judge

went on.

O'Brien suddenly drooped towards his ear. "All those things are known, señor, my colleague," he said, and began to whisper.

The old judge showed signs of very naïve astonishment and joy. "Is it possible?" he exclaimed. "This man? He is very young to have committed such crimes."

The clerk hurriedly left the room. He returned with many papers. O'Brien, leaning over the judge's shoulder, emphasized words with one finger. What new villainies could O'Brien be meditating? It wasn't possibly the Lugareño's suggestion that I had lured men to murder Don Balthasar? Was it merely that I had infringed some law in carrying off Seraphina?

The old judge said, "How lucky, Don Patricio! We may now satisfy the English admiral. What good fortune!"

He suddenly sat straight in his chair; O'Brien behind him

scrutinizing my face-to see how I should bear what was coming.

"What is your name?" the judge asked peremptorily.

I said, "Juan-John Kemp. I am of noble English family; I am well enough known. Ask the Señor O'Brien."

On O'Brien's shaken face the smile hardened.

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"I heard that in Rio Medio the señor was called called . . . He paused and appealed to the Lugareño. What was he called—the capataz, the man who led the picaroons?"

The Lugareño stammered, "Nikola Señor Don Patricio."

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Nikola el Escoces,

"You hear?" O'Brien asked the judge. "This villager identifies the man."

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"Undoubtedly-undoubtedly," the Juez said. We need no more evidence. ... You, señor, have seen this villain in Rio Medio, this villager identifies him by name."

I said, "This is absurd. A hundred witnesses can say that I am John Kemp. . . ."

"That may be true," the Juez said dryly, and then to his clerk:

"Write here, 'John Kemp, of noble British family, called, on the scene of his crimes, Nikola el Escoces, otherwise El Demonio.'

I shrugged my shoulders. I did not, at the moment, realize to what this all tended.

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The judge said to the clerk, "Read the Act of Accusation. Read here. He was pointing to a paragraph of the papers the clerk had brought in. They were the Act of Accusation, prepared long before, against the man Nichols.

This particular villainy suddenly became grotesquely and portentously plain. The clerk read an appalling catalogue of sordid crimes, working into each other like kneaded dough-the testimony of witnesses who had signed the record. Nikola had looted fourteen ships, and had apparently murdered twenty-two people with his own hand-two of them women-and there was the affair of Rowley's boats. "The pinnace," the clerk read, “of the British came within ten yards. The said Nikola then ex

claimed, '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. . . .'

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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 Lugareño 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 Lugareño, "is a pirate. And, what is more, he is in the pay of the Señor Juez O'Brien. He was the lieutenant of a man called Manuel-del-Popolo, who commanded the Lugareños after Nikola left Rio Medio."

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"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.

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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.

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The señor 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 Lugareño 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.

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The curse the curse of Cromwell on you," he sobbed suddenly. "You send me back to hell again." He writhed his whole body. "Sorrow!" he said, "I know it. But what's this? What's this?"

The many reasons he had for sorrow flashed on me like a procession of somber images.

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Dead and done with a man can bear," he muttered. But this-Not to know-perhaps alive-perhaps hidden-She may be With a change like a flash he was commanding

dead.

me.

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"Tell me how you escaped."

I had a vague inspiration of the truth.

"You aren't fit for a decent man's speaking to," I said. "You let her drown."

It gave me suddenly the measure of his ignorance; he did not know anything-nothing. His hell was uncertainty. Well, let him stay there.

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Where is she?" he said. Where is she?"

'Where she's no need to fear you," I answered.

He had a sudden convulsive gesture, as if searching for a

weapon.

"If you'll tell me she's alive . . ." he began. "Oh, I'm not dead," I answered.

"Never a drowned puppy was more," he said, with a flash of vivacity. "You hang here for murder-or in England for piracy."

"Then I've little to want to live for," I sneered at him.

"You let her drown," he said.

house, a young girl, in a little boat.

head."

"You took her from that

And you can hold up your

"I was trying to save her from you," I answered.

"By God," he said. "These English-I've seen them, spit the

child on the mother's breast.

I've seen them set fire to the thatch

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"You can't make me go through worse than I've borne," I answered. Sorrow and all he might wish on my head, my life was too precious to him till I spoke. I wasn't going to speak.

"I'll search every ship in the harbor," he said passionately. "Do," I said. "Bring your Lugareños to the task."

Upon the whole, I wasn't much afraid. Unless he got definite evidence he couldn't-in the face of the consul's protests, and the presence of the admiral-touch the Lion again. He fixed his eyes intently upon me.

"You came in the American brigantine," he said. "It's known you landed in her boat."

I didn't answer him; it was plain enough that the drogher's arrival had either not been reported to him, or it had been searched in vain.

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In her boat," he repeated. "I tell you I know she is not dead; even you, an Englishman, must have a different face if she were."

"I don't at least ask you for life," I said, "to enjoy with her."

"She's alive," he said. "Alive! As for where, it matters little. I'll search every inch of the island, every road, every hacienda. You don't realize my power."

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Then search the bottom of the sea," I shouted.

"Let's look at the matter in the right light."

He had mastered his grief, his incertitude.

He was himself

again, and the smile had returned, as if at the moment he forced his features to their natural lines.

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'Send one of your friars to heaven-you'll never go there yourself to meet her."

"If you will tell me she's alive, I'll save you."

I made a mute, obstinate gesture.

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If she's alive, and you don't tell me, I can't but find her. And I'll make you know the agonies of suspense-a long way from here."

I was silent.

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If she's dead, and you'll tell me, I'll save you some trouble.

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