“Jackie,” he said agitatedly, as if he were afraid of offending me, “he
said you had filched his wife’s rings.”
That, in fact, was what Major Cowper _had_ said--that I had dropped into
their ship near Port Royal Heads, and had afterwards gone away with the
pirates who had filched his wife’s rings. My father, in his indignation,
had not even deigned to ask him for the address of Jamaica planters in
London; and on his way back to find a solicitor he had come into contact
with those street rowdies and the watch. He had only just come from
before the magistrates.
A man with one eye poked his head suddenly from behind the Grand Jury
door. He jerked his head in my direction.
“True bill against that ’ere,” he said, then drew his head in again.
“Jackie, boy,” my father said, putting a thin hand on my wrist, and
gazing imploringly into my eyes, “I’m... I’m ... I can’t tell you
how....”
I said, “It doesn’t matter, father.” I felt a foretaste of how my past
would rise up to crush me. Cowper had let that wife of his coerce
him into swearing my life away. I remembered vividly his blubbering
protestations of friendship when I persuaded Tomas Castro to return him
his black deed-box with the brass handle, on that deck littered with
rubbish.... “Oh, God bless you, God bless you. You have saved me from
starvation....” There had been tears in his old blue eyes. “If you need
it I will go anywhere... do anything to help you. On the honour of a
gentleman and a soldier.” I had, of course, recommended his wife to give
up her rings when the pirates were threatening her in the cabin. The
other door opened, another man said:
“Now, then, in with that carrion. D’you want to keep the judges
waiting?”
I stepped through the door straight down into the dock; there was a row
of spikes in the front of it. I wasn’t afraid; three men in enormous
wigs and ermine robes faced me; four in short wigs had their heads
together like parrots on a branch. A fat man, bareheaded, with a gilt
chain round his neck, slipped from behind into a seat beside the highest
placed judge. He was wiping his mouth and munching with his jaws. On
each side of the judges, beyond the short-wigged assessors, were chairs
full of ladies and gentlemen. They all had their eyes upon me. I saw it
all very plainly. I was going to see everything, to keep my eyes open,
not to let any chance escape. I wondered why a young girl with blue eyes
and pink cheeks tittered and shrugged her shoulders. I did not know what
was amusing. What astonished me was the smallness, the dirt, the want of
dignity of the room itself. I thought they must be trying a case of my
importance there by mistake.
Presently I noticed a great gilt anchor above the judges’ heads. I
wondered why it was there, until I remembered it was an Admiralty Court.
I thought suddenly, “Ah! if I had thought to tell my father to go and
see if the _Lion_ had come in in the night!”
A man was bawling out a number of names.... “Peter Plimley, gent., any
challenge.... Lazarus Cohen, merchant, any challenge....”
The turnkey beside me leant with his back against the spikes. He was
talking to the man who had called us in.
“Lazarus Cohen, West Indian merchant.... Lord, well, I’d challenge....”
The other man said, “S--sh.”
“His old dad give me five shiners to put him up to a thing if I could,”
the turnkey said again.
I didn’t catch his meaning until an old man with a very ragged gown
was handing up a book to a row of others in a box so near that I could
almost have touched them. Then I realized that the turnkey had been
winking to me to challenge the jury. I called out at the highest of the
judges:
“I protest against that jury. It is packed. Half of them, at least, are
West Indian merchants.”
There was a stir all over the court. I realized then that what had
seemed only a mass of stuffs of some sort were human beings all looking
at me. The judge I had called to opened a pair of dim eyes upon me,
clasped and unclasped his hands, very dry, ancient, wrinkled. The judge
on his right called angrily:
“Nonsense, it is too late.... They are being sworn. You should have
spoken when the names were read.” Underneath his wig was an immensely
broad face with glaring yellow eyes.
I said, “It is scandalous. You want to murder me, How should I know what
you do in your courts? I say the jury is packed.”
The very old judge closed his eyes, opened them again, then gasped out:
“Silence. We are here to try you. This is a court of law.”
The turnkey pulled my sleeve under cover of the planking. “Treat him
civil,” he whispered, “Lord Justice Stowell of the Hadmir’lty. ’Tother’s
Baron Garrow of the Common Law; a beast; him as hanged that kid. You can
sass him; it doesn’t matter.”
Lord Stowell waved his hand to the clerk with the ragged gown; the book
passed from hand to hand along the faces of the jury, the clerk gabbling
all the while. The old judge said suddenly, in an astonishingly deep,
majestic voice:
“Prisoner at the bar, you must understand that we are here to give you
an impartial trial according to the laws of this land. If you desire
advice as to the procedure of this court you can have it.”
I said, “I still protest against that Jury. I am an innocent man,
and------”
He answered querulously, “Yes, yes, afterwards.” And then creaked, “Now
the indictment....”
Someone hidden from me by three barristers began to read in a loud voice
not very easy to follow. I caught:
“For that the said John Kemp, alias Nichols, alias Nikola el Escoces,
alias el Demonio, alias el Diabletto, on the twelfth of May last, did
feloniously and upon the high seas piratically seize a certain ship
called the _Victoria_... um... um, the properties of Hyman Cohen and
others... and did steal and take therefrom six hundred and thirty
barrels of coffee of the value of... um... um... um... one hundred and
one barrels of coffee of the value of... ninety-four half kegs... and
divers others...”
I gave an immense sigh.... That was it, then. I had heard of the
_Victoria_; it was when I was at Horton that the news of her loss
reached us. Old Macdonald had sworn; it was the day a negro called
Apollo had taken to the bush. I ought to be able to prove that.
Afterwards, one of the judges asked me if I pleaded guilty or not
guilty. I began a long wrangle about being John Kemp but not Nikola el
Escoces. I was going to fight every inch of the way. They said:
“You will have your say afterwards. At present, guilty or not guilty?”
I refused to plead at all; I was not the man. The third judge woke up,
and said hurriedly:
“That is a plea of not guilty, enter it as such.” Then he went to sleep
again. The young girl on the bench beside him laughed joyously, and Mr.
Baron Garrow nodded round at her, then snapped viciously at me:
“You don’t make your case any better by this sort of foolery.” His eyes
glared at me like an awakened owl’s.
I said, “I’m fighting for my neck... and you’ll have to fight, too, to
get it.”
The old judge said angrily, “Silence, or you will have to be removed.”