precise forms of the several indictments
against me. These things are managed in Italy pretty much as they are in
England, except that here you have no accusatore pubblico. The place of
that functionary would, in an English Court, be filled by a temporarily
appointed counsel for the Crown. When I was placed in the dock, I looked
about with an interest no more vivid than that of any spectator there.
Mr. Gregory sat beside my counsel, and nodded to me gravely. There was
no one else whom I knew, although the place was crowded. There was a
murmur on my entrance, and I heard many words of hatred and loathing
muttered here and there. For a moment no one spoke or moved, and the
Court seemed to await something. I saw what that something was when
Giovanni Fornajo was placed in the dock by my side, and we were jointly
and severally arraigned. The accustore pubblico arose, and, gathering
his gown about him, spoke.

Had I been one of the crowd who listened, I should have believed myself
guilty. The evidence against me, as he set it forth, seemed a web
closely woven enough to hold anything. I had been seen by two or more
people engaged in a quarrel with the deceased in the Basso Porto. I had
been seen on the Chiaja with him at a time when he was the worse for
drink, and when my conduct and appearance were so suspicious that a
perfect stranger was impelled to watch me for two hours lest I should do
the man a mischief in his drunken sleep. Two or three hours later, this
perfect stranger to us both had found the dead body of Charles Grammont
in the road with all the pockets of his garments turned inside out,
and had put the body into a cart he was then driving from Posilipo to
Naples. A hundred yards nearer the city he found me lying bruised as if
in a struggle, and with the marks of a hand wet with blood upon my white
shirt-front. The marks of the hand had been found to correspond in size
with the hand of the deceased. My companion in the dock was probably, so
the accusatore said, an accessory before the fact, and it was probable
that, whilst I had committed the crime to gratify my own evil passion
for revenge, I had engaged this desperate and notorious character to
pillage the body in order to give the murder the appearance of having
been committed from a purely sordid motive. He set forth all his facts
and all his theories about them with great calmness, but when he came to
the close of his indictment he burst into an impassioned pr