"
"I see, I see," said Hanky very angrily. "You are determined to get this
man off if you can."
"I shall act," said George, "in accordance with sworn evidence, and not
otherwise. Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be your poacher
or no: give me your sworn depositions one way or the other, and I shall
know how to act. If you depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner
and your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned. As to his being a
foreign devil, if he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise
I cannot Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired, without
testimony deposed to me on oath in private, though no open trial is
required. A case for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night,
but I must have depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can
decide what my duty is. What will you swear to?"
"All this," said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, "shall be reported
to the King."
"I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point: the
question is what you gentlemen will swear to?"
"Very well. I will settle it thus. We will swear that the prisoner is
the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is also a foreign
devil: his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign accent; the
foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over from the other
side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his
having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails till our
permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told us about
your orders, and that other story about his having killed a foreign
devil--if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy the King that
the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher.
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