Down a flight of steps, through a courtyard heavy with shadows, then up tortuous stairs to a door beneath a dim electric globe. The door opened from within, and Grant found himself in a chamber which might have passed as a courtroom. At its far end on a raised dais was a long desk lighted from above, three men sitting behind it. A sort of wooden cage stood apart on a platform by itself. Six men with serapes over their shoulders and rifles hanging by straps across the blanket stripes were slouching before the judges’ dais. A black headed peon crouched timorously on a seat to the left and behind the guards. Grant’s escort halted him before the judges. He kept silence, studying the faces of the three. Not pleasant faces. A hardness of eye and cat-like bristle of moustachios over thin line of lips was common to the trio. “Grant ’Ickman?” challenged the man in the middle. Grant nodded. His interrogator gave a sign to one of the rurales. The latter turned to the peon on the bench, dragged him to his feet and hustled him to the cage-like affair to the left of the dais, evidently a witness box. The little fellow’s head hardly showed above the top rail that fenced him in; his eyes were all whites. The examining judge jerked a thumb toward Grant as he shaped a question in Spanish for the witness. The peon bobbed his head emphatically. Another question and, “_Si_,” chirped the witness. Then a lengthy flow of interrogation prompted by reference to some dossier in hand. “_Si! Si!_” The witness hurried to oblige. Cat whiskers lifted in a smile as the judge turned back to Grant. “You unnerstan’?” “I don’t,” bluntly. More twitching of the spiked moustachios. “Zeese man, ’oo’s make confession of counterfeiting and ’oo ees to be shot to-day, says ’e sells you thirty pesos made with bad metal--counterfeit. An’--” “He lies!” Grant interrupted. “_Quieto!_” The judge banged his fist on the desk and fixed the prisoner with a savage glare. “’E says, zeese man, ’e meets with you las’ night on Calle San Lazar outside Crystal Palacio gambling ’ouse an’ for ten veritable pesos ’e gives to you thirty pesos of bad metal. Then zeese man ’e says ’e sees you enter Crystal Palacio. What remark you make for zeese?” The monstrous farce of this accusation numbed Grant. Judicial subornation fabricated to give colour to what was already determined in the minds of these three puppets. As clearly as if they were bearing on him he could see the cold, mocking eyes of Colonel Urgo behind the shoulders of his pawns on the bench. Perception of his peril steadied him. “I demand a lawyer if I am to be tried on this outrageous charge. And I demand that the American consul in this town be told of the accusation against me.” The interrogating judge turned to his confreres with a bland outspreading of the palms. Then to Grant: