“Que dice, que dice?” enquired the young Spaniard already mentioned. I said that the court seemed to infer, and were pressing it on the jury, that the absence of any commission or letter of marque from a superior officer, or from any of the Spanish authorities, was strong evidence that they were marauders--in fact pirates. “Ah!” he exclaimed; “gracias, gracias!” Then, with an agitated hand, he drew from his bosom a parchment, folded like the manifest of a merchant ship, and at the same moment the gruff fierce-looking elderly man did the same, with another similar instrument from his own breast. “Here, here are the commissions--here are authorities from the Captain General of Cuba. Read them.” I looked over them; they were regular to all appearance; at least as there were no autographs in court of the Spanish Viceroy, or any of his officers, whose signatures, either real or forged, were affixed to the instruments, with which to compare them, there was a great chance, I conjectured, so far as I saw, that they would be acquitted: and in this case we, his majesty’s officers, would have been converted into the transgressing party; for if it were established that the vessels taken were bona fide Guarda Costas, we should be placed in an awkward predicament, in having captured them by force of arms, not to take into account the having violated the sanctity of a friendly port. But I could see that this unexpected production of regular papers by their officers had surprised the pirates themselves, as much as it had done me,--whether it was a heinous offence of mine or not to conceal this impression from the court, (there is some dispute about the matter to this hour between me and my conscience,) I cannot tell; but I was determined to stick scrupulously to the temporary duties of my office, without stating what I suspected, or even translating some sudden expressions overheard by me, that would have shaken the credibility of the documents. “Comissiones, comissiones!” for instance, was murmured by a weather beaten Spaniard, with a fine bald head, from which two small tufts of grey hair stood out above his ears, and with a superb Moorish face “Comissiones es decir patentes--Si hay comissiones, el Diablo, mismo, les ha hecho!” The court was apparently nonplussed--not so the wigless man of law. His pea green visage assumed a more ghastly hue, and the expression of his eyes became absolutely blasting. He looked altogether like a cat sure of her mouse, but willing to let it play in fancied joy of escaping, as he said softly to the Jew crier, who was perched in a high chair above the heads of the people, like an ugly corbie in its dirty nest--“Crier, call Job Rumbletithump, mate of the Porpoise.” “Job Rumbletithump, come into court!” “Here,” quoth Job, as a stout, bluff honest-looking sailor rolled into the witnessbox.