I didn’t answer; I did not understand; I wanted to tell him I did not care, because the _Lion_ was posted as overdue and Seraphina was drowned. The Court seemed to be moving slowly up and down in front of me like the deck of a ship. I thought I was bound again, and on the sofa in the gorgeous cabin of the _Madre-de-Dios_. Someone seemed to be calling, “Prisoner at the bar... Prisoner at the bar....” It was as if the candles had been lit in front of the Madonna with the pink child, only she had a gilt anchor instead of the spiky gilt glory above her head. Somebody was saying, “Hello there.... Hold up!... Here, bring a chair,...” and there were arms around me. Afterwards I sat down. A very old judge’s voice said something rather kindly, I thought. I knew it was the very old judge, because he was called the star of Cuban law. Someone would be bending over me soon, with a lanthorn, and I should be wiping the flour out of my eyes and blinking at the red velvet and gilding of the cabin ceiling. In a minute Carlos and Castro would come... or was it O’Brien who would come? No, O’Brien was dead; stabbed, with a knife in his neck; the blood was still sticky between my first and second fingers. I could feel it. I ought to have been allowed to wash my hands before I was tried; or was it before I spoke to the admiral? One would not speak to a man with hands like that. A loud, high-pitched voice called from up in the air, “I will give any of you gentlemen of the robe down there fifty pounds to conduct the remainder of the case for him. I am the prisoner’s father.” My father’s voice broke the spell. I was in the court; the candles were still burning; all the faces, lit up or in the shadow, were bunched together in little groups; hands waved. The barrister whose face was like the devil’s under his wig held in his hands the paper that had been handed to Lord Stowell; my father was talking to him from the bench. The barrister, tall, his robes old and ragged, silhouetted against the light, glanced down the paper, fluttered it in his hand, nodded to my father, and began a grotesque, nasal drawl: “M’luds, I will conduct the case for the prisoner, if your lordships will bear with me a little. He obviously can’t call his own witnesses. If he has been treated as he says, it has been one of the most abominable...” Old Lord Stowell said, “Ch’t, ch’t, Mr. Walker; you know you must not make a speech for the prisoner. Call your witness. It is all that is needed.” I wondered what he meant by that. The barrister was calling a man of the name of Williams. I seemed to know the name. I seemed to know the man, too. “Owen Williams, Master of the ship _Lion_.... Coffee and dye-wood.... Just come in under a jury-rig. Had been dismasted and afterwards becalmed. Heard of this trial from the pilot in Graves-end. Had taken post-chaises...” I only heard snatches of his answers.