e to men
which does not apply equally to the imperfection of human laws. The
appearance of things, that fatal contradiction which the genius of evil
so often here on earth gives to truth, overwhelmed the poor fisherman
with the most evident proofs.

Trespolo, in whom fear had destroyed all scruples, being first examined,
as having been the young prince's confidant, declared with cool
impudence that, his master having shown a wish to escape for a few
days from the importunities of a young married lady whose passion was
beginning to tire him, had followed him to the island with three or
four of his most faithful servants, and that he himself had adopted the
disguise of a pilgrim, not wishing to betray his excellency's incognito
to the fisher-people, who would certainly have tormented so powerful a
person by all sorts of petitions. Two local watch men, who had happened
to be on the hillside at the moment of the crime, gave evidence that
confirmed the valet's lengthy statement; hidden by some under wood, they
had seen Gabriel rush upon the prince, and had distinctly heard the last
words of the dying man; calling "Murder!" All the witnesses, even those
summoned at the request of the prisoner, made his case worse by their
statements, which they tried to make favourable. Thus the court, with
its usual perspicacity and its infallible certainty, succeeded in
establishing the fact that Prince Eligi of Brancaleone, having taken
a temporary dislike to town life, had retired to the little island of
Nisida, there to give himself up peaceably to the pleasure of fishing,
for which he had at all times had a particular predilection (a proof
appeared among the documents of the case that the prince had regularly
been present every other year at the tunny-fishing on his property at
Palermo); that when once he was thus hidden in the island, Gabriel might
have recognised him, having gone with his sister to the procession, a
few days before, and had, no doubt, planned to murder him. On the
day before the night of the crime, the absence of Gabriel and the
discomposure of his father and sister had been remarked. Towards evening
the prince had dismissed his servant, and gone out alone, as his custom
was, to walk by the seashore. Surprised by the storm and not knowing
the byways of the island, he had wandered round the fisherman's house,
seeking a shelter; then Gabriel, encouraged by the darkness and by the
noise of the tempest, which seemed likel