The judge said to the clerk, “Read the Act of Accusation. Read here....” He was pointing to a paragraph of the papers the clerk had brought in. They were the Act of Accusation, prepared long before, against the man Nichols. This particular villainy suddenly became grotesquely and portentously plain. The clerk read an appalling catalogue of sordid crimes, working into each other like kneaded dough--the testimony of witnesses who had signed the record. Nikola had looted fourteen ships, and had apparently murdered twenty-two people with his own hand--two of them women--and there was the affair of Rowley’s boats. “The pinnace,” the clerk read, “of the British came within ten yards. The said Nikola then exclaimed, ‘Curse the bloodthirsty hounds,’ and fired the grapeshot into the boat. Seven were killed by that discharge. This I saw with my own eyes.... Signed, Isidoro Alemanno.” And another swore, “The said Nikola was below, but he came running up, and with one blow of his knife severed the throat of the man who was kneeling on the deck....” There was no doubt that Nikola had committed these crimes; that the witnesses had sworn to them and signed the deposition.... The old judge had evidently never seen him, and now O’Brien and the _Lugareño_ had sworn that I was Nikola el Escoces, alias El Demonio. My first impulse was to shout with rage; but I checked it because I knew I should be silenced. I said: “I am not Nikola el Escoces. That I can easily prove.” The Judge of the First Instance shrugged his shoulders and looked, with implicit trust, up into O’Brien’s face. “That man,” I pointed at the _Lugareño_, “is a pirate. And, what is more, he is in the pay of the Señor Juez O’Brien. He was the lieutenant of a man called Manuel-del-Popolo, who commanded the _Lugareños_ after Nikola left Rio Medio.” “You know very much about the pirates,” the _Juez_ said, with the sardonic air of a very stupid man. “Without doubt you were intimate with them. I sign now your order for committal to the _carcel_ of the Marine Court.” I said, “But I tell you I am not Nikola....” The _Juez_ said impassively, “You pass out of my hands into those of the Marine Court. I am satisfied that you are a person deserving of a trial. That is the limit of my responsibility.” I shouted then, “But I tell you this O’Brien is my personal enemy.” The old man smiled acidly. “The señor need fear nothing of our courts. He will be handed over to his own countrymen. Without doubt of them he will obtain justice.” He signed to the _Lugareño_ to go, and rose, gathering up his papers; he bowed to O’Brien. “I leave the criminal at the disposal of your worship,” he said, and went out with his clerk.