annot remember very distinctly what took place at the trial, or
rather the first part of it is to me a very confused memory. I know,
however, that things looked very black against me, for each of the
Preventive men swore that he had seen me at eleven o'clock on the
previous night showing the false light on the coast.

I declared this to be a lie with very great vehemence, and swore that I
had shown no false light.

Presently Richard Tresidder spoke, and his voice made my blood gallop
through my veins, and my heart full of bitterness.

"Will the prisoner give an account of his actions since he escaped from
the whipping-post more than two months ago?" he asked.

Now if I did this I should indeed criminate myself, for a confession
that I had been with Cap'n Jack's gang would be to ally myself with the
sturdiest set of rogues on the coast, and would enable Richard Tresidder
to get me hanged at the next assizes.

"You hear the question, Jasper Pennington," said Admiral Trefry; "will
you tell what you have been doing these last two months and more?"

But I held my peace, and seeing this the justices conversed one with
another. Had they all been of Richard Tresidder's way of thinking I
should have been sent to Bodmin Gaol to wait the next assizes without
further ado; but Admiral Trefry, who was uncle to Lawyer Trefry, wanted
to befriend me, and so I was allowed opportunities for befriending
myself which would not have been given to me had my enemy been allowed
his way.

Presently a thought struck me which at the time seemed very feasible,
and I wondered that I had not thought of it in the earlier part of the
trial.

"May I be allowed to ask the Preventive men a few questions?" I asked.

"You may," replied the Admiral. "You can ask them questions as to their
evidence by which you are accused of attempting to lure a vessel on to
destruction."

"I would like to ask, first of all, what I should gain by doing this?
What would it profit me to wreck a vessel?"

The Preventive man who had been the chief spokesman seemed a little
confused, then he said, with a great deal of assurance, "I believe, your
worship, that he is one of a gang of desperadoes and wreckers who live
over by Kynance."

"May I ask," I said, "what reason he has for believing this?"

"Your worship," said the officer, "we know that there is a gang of men
who infest the coast. For a long time we have tried to lay hands on them
in vain. They are very cunn