"What countrymen are they?" inquired Carew. "Two are Spaniards and one is a Frenchman. I think the Frenchman was the ringleader of the mutineers, for he looks a clever rascal. And now, Mr. Allen, the trial will probably conclude this afternoon. The court is very crowded, but I can get you in. Come along, and you will be able to compare the Dutch and English criminal procedure." Carew would have preferred to decline the invitation, but in ordinary politeness found it difficult to do so; and he accompanied the native lawyer--who undoubtedly possessed the gift of the gab, if no other qualifications for his profession--to the law courts. Carew felt anything but easy in his mind as he walked through the main streets of the town, at this hour of the day crowded with a motley throng, including not a few of his own countrymen, bent on pleasure or business. Pretending to listen to his companion's unceasing gossip, the solicitor looked anxiously about him as he went, fearing at each step to see some well-known face from Fleet Street. The glaring sunshine had rejoiced his soul when he was out on the lonely seas, but in the hives of his fellow-men he shrank from the all-searching light, and experienced guilt's instinct for safe obscurity. But he saw no one he knew on his way, and was much relieved when Mr. Hoogendyk procured for him, after some difficulty, a seat in a remote and dark corner of the court, where he could see and hear, himself unseen. Carew soon became so interested in watching the faces of the three men who were being tried for their lives that, in spite of the advocate's whispered suggestions on the subject, he paid no attention to the procedure, and did not endeavour to compare the Dutch and English legal systems. He took no interest in law now; he was indeed heartily sick of it, and hoped that he had washed his hands of it for ever. Of the three men only one had a really unprepossessing and murderous countenance. A murderer looks much like any other man, though people who take their ideas from waxwork shows think otherwise. That this should be so is obvious enough. A few only of murderers have homicidal proclivities as a part of their nature, and these indeed may betray their character in their physiognomy. All the other passions and vices of disposition can, under certain circumstances, compel the man who has the greatest horror of bloodshed to kill a fellow-being. In the large majority of cases, murder is not a tendency but the result of other tendencies. But one of the three prisoners had indeed a villainous appearance. He was a big, clumsily built Spaniard from the Basque countries, with a heavy, animal face and an evil mouth, indicative of the stupid cruelty of some savage beast. The other Spaniard was a short, stout man, with a jovial face and an enormous black moustache, which he twirled occasionally with a complete _nonchalance_. There was nothing of the murderer in his appearance.