But the cross-examination of the Claimant himself was really the turning-point of the trial. It extended over twenty-seven days, and embraced the whole history of Roger Tichborne's life, his alleged rescue, the life in Australia, and all subsequent proceedings. Besides this, matters connected with the Orton case were inquired into. Much that was calculated to alarm supporters of the Claimant was elicited. He was compelled to admit that he had no confirmation to offer of his strange story of the rescue, and that he could produce no survivor of the "Osprey," nor any one of the crew of the "Bella" alleged to have been rescued with him. The mere existence of such a vessel was not evidenced by any shipping register or gazette, or custom-house record. It was moreover admitted that he had changed his story--had for a whole year given up the "Osprey," and said the vessel was the "Themis," and finally returned to the "Osprey" again. All the strange circumstances of the Wagga-Wagga will, the Gibbes and Cubitt correspondence, the furtive transactions with the Orton family, the curious revelations of the commissions in South America and Australia, were acknowledged, and either left unexplained or explained in a way which was evasive, inconsistent, and contradictory. His accounts of his relations with Arthur Orton were also vague, and his attempts to support his assertion that Castro and Orton were not one and the same, but different persons, were unsatisfactory, while by his own confession his habitual associates in Australia had been highway robbers and other persons of the vilest class. With regard to his life in Paris he admitted that his mind was "a blank," and he confessed that he could not read a line of Roger Tichborne's letters in French. He gave answers which evidenced gross ignorance on all the matters which Roger's letters and other evidence showed that he had studied. He said he did not think Euclid was connected with mathematics, though Roger had passed an examination in Euclid; and that he believed that a copy of Virgil handed to him was "Greek," which it doubtless was to him. He was compelled again and again to admit that statements he had deliberately made were absolutely false. When questioned with regard to that most impressive of all episodes in Roger's life, his love for his cousin, now Lady Radcliffe, he showed himself unacquainted not merely with precise dates, but with the broad outline of the story and the order of events. His answers on these matters were again confused, and wholly irreconcilable. Yet the Solicitor-General persisting for good reasons in interrogating him on the slanderous story of the sealed packet, he was compelled to repeat in Court, though with considerable variations, what he had long ago caused to be bruited abroad. Mrs. (she was not then Lady) Radcliffe, by her own wish, sat in Court beside her husband, confronting the false witness, and they had the satisfaction of hearing him convicted, out