An hour later the candles were still guttering in the court room, and here Colonel Lopez assembled his minions of justice a second time. In his manner now there was nothing of the uncertainty, nor the feigning of penetration, which had before marked his handling of the trials. He pounded the box with his sword. "In the light of new evidence," he announced shortly, "the two cases of a while ago are reopened." Din Driscoll strolled in. "I've come for my belt and pistols. Dupin took them," he said. Lopez signed to the Dragoons to close round him. Then he gave vent. Did the Senor Gringo laugh so much at Mexican justice, since instead of escaping while he had the chance, he came back, coolly demanding his property? It was insolence! "_Gra_-cious," exclaimed Driscoll in his counterfeit of a startled old lady, "what's the matter?" But Lopez put on a mien of dark cunning, and replied that he would find out later. Murguia's case came first. The stricken father was there, dragged from his dead by the petty concerns of this world which cannot bide for grief. He was as a sleep-walker. He had come into another universe. The hacienda sala, where his child lay mid tapers, where mumbled prayers arose, or this adobe, where uniformed men fouled the air with cigarettes and looked after the Empire's business--the one or the other, both places were of that other universe, dark and silent, in which his dazed being groped alone. The new element in the court martial was Tiburcio, and Tiburcio had in mind one golden goose to save and one meddling Gringo to lose. He riddled the foregoing evidence with refreshing originality. He testified to the brigand attack for possession of the marquise. Had he not found Don Anastasio stretched upon the ground? Had not the dauntless anciano, the self-same Don Anastasio, fallen in defence of the two French senoritas? And yet, did he not keep Rodrigo at bay? Si, senores, he had indeed, until Colonel Dupin and the Contras arrived. He, the witness, was with them. He had seen these things. Now, let anyone say that the loyal Senor Murguia was an accomplice of that cut-throat without shame, Rodrigo Galan; whom he, the witness, loathed from the innermost recesses of his being; whom he, the witness, should be greatly pleased to strike dead. But let anyone again besmirch the character of Don Anastasio! "No, no," vociferously growled the Austrian. Lopez opposed nothing. He had a clear notion this time as to what he wanted. Driscoll marveled, and enjoyed it. Pigheadedness had made Don Anastasio guilty, why shouldn't perjury make him innocent? And it did. The mountain of suspicion and some few pebbles of evidence melted away as lard in a skillet. The verdict was acquittal.