Reading it rapidly, and handing it to the police magistrate, that official said: ‘In consequence of the information just received from my superior officer, by telegram, I beg to apply for the discharge of the younger prisoner.’ The police magistrate acceded. Thereupon the door or the gate of the dock was opened and Mr. Neuchamp, permitted egress through the same, much like a rabbit from a hutch, was formally discharged. ‘It would appear,’ said the stipendiary magistrate, ‘from the latest information in the hands of the police, that an instance of mistaken identity has in your case occurred, leading to your—a—apprehension and detention, which, under the circumstances, I regret. Senior-Constable Taylor was fully justified in arresting you as the companion of a notoriously bad and desperate character’ (here the Captain smiled serenely, and stroked his moustache)—‘in arresting you on suspicion of felony. It appears that the person described in the _Police Gazette_, and whom you unfortunately appear to resemble, has been arrested, and is now in custody at Warren. You are therefore discharged, and as you are a young man of respectable appearance, I trust that it will be a warning to you; a—that is to say, as to the choice of your associates. John Lulworth Broughton, you stand committed to take your trial at the next Quarter Sessions,’ etc. etc. The telegram which had so suddenly and effectually changed the current of Ernest’s destiny ran as follows: ‘From Sub-Inspector Hawker, Warren, to the officer in charge of police, Boonamarran. The right man, Captain Spinks’s mate, arrested here, 4 A.M. Discharge fair prisoner forthwith.’ Ernest left the court certainly a sadder and a presumably wiser man, and sought a private room in the chief inn, having some difficulty in evading the invitations to liquor pressed upon him by the chief inhabitants, who, having fully agreed that if ever a man looked guilty he did, were anxious now, in reactionary regret, to make him amends for their unfounded and evil thoughts. Among the persons firmly, perhaps unceremoniously, repelled, was a pale young man with longish hair and an intelligent countenance. This personage sat down and hastily wrote a report of the proceedings, in the course of which he dilated upon the hardship of an untried man suffering the degrading and mental torture to which, if innocent, he is perforce subjected, in the present state of the law. This was at once forwarded to a leading metropolitan journal. A telegram of a sensational nature was also despatched for the evening paper: ‘Arrest of a gentleman newly arrived, for robbery under arms. The case broke down. He is now at liberty.’ CHAPTER VIII