Being free, I'm free
to sarve where I please."
"It is useless to ask this witness any further questions," Cuffe quietly
observed. "The man is well known in this ship, and his own trial will
most probably take place as soon as this is ended."
The Judge Advocate assented, and Ithuel was permitted to withdraw, his
contumacy being treated with the indifference that power is apt to
exhibit toward weakness. Still there was no legal proof on which to
convict the prisoner. No one doubted his guilt, and there were the
strongest reasons, short of a downright certainty, for supposing that he
commanded the lugger which had so recently fought the boats of the very
ship in which the court was sitting; but notwithstanding, supposition
was not the evidence the laws required; and the recent execution of
Caraccioli had made so much conversation that few would condemn without
seeing their justification before them. Things were really getting to be
seriously awkward, and the court was again cleared for the purpose of
consultation. In the private discourse that followed, Cuffe stated all
that had occurred, the manner in which Raoul had been identified, and
the probabilities--nay, moral certainties--of the case. At the same
time, he was forced to allow that he possessed no direct evidence that
the lugger he had chased was a Frenchman at all, and least of all le
Feu-Follet. It is true, she had worn the French flag, but she had also
worn the English, and the Proserpine had done the same thing.
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