d--or, as the sergeant put it: "Divartin' his attenshun."

The big Irishman scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I must go wire th'
O.C. report av all this. Sind Gully comes back on th' same thrain wid
Inspector Kilbride to-morrow. Thin we can go ahead--wid two J.P.s tu
handle things. Yuh take charge av Mr. Man, Ridmond! Me an' Yorke will
go an' eat now, an' relieve yuh later."

CHAPTER VIII

"The Court is prepared, the Lawyers are met,
The Judges all ranged, a terrible show!"
As Captain Macheath says,--and when one's arraigned,
The sight's as unpleasant a one as I know.
THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS.

"Orrrdher in Coort!" rang out Sergeant Slavin's abrupt command. It was
about ten o'clock the following morning. The hotel parlour had been
hastily transformed into a temporary court-room. A large square table
had been drawn to one end of the room and two easy chairs placed
conveniently behind it. Fronting it was a long bench, designed for the
prisoner and escort. In the immediate rear were arranged a few rows of
chairs, to accommodate the witnesses and spectators.

The sergeant's order, prompted by the entrance of the two Justices of the
Peace, was the occasion of all present rising to attention, in customary
deference to police-court rules. One of the newcomers, dressed in the
neat blue-serge uniform of an inspector of the Force, was familiar to
Redmond as Inspector Kilbride, who had been recently transferred to L
Division from a northern district. He had close-cropped gray hair and a
clipped, grizzled moustache. Though apparently nearing middle-age he
still possessed the slim, wiry, active figure of a man long inured to the
saddle.

The appearance of his judicial confrere fairly startled George. He was a
huge fellow, fully as tall and as heavy a man as Slavin, though not so
compactly-built or erect as the latter. Still, his wide, loosely-hung,
slightly bowed shoulders suggested vast strength, and his leisurely
though active movements indicated absolute muscular control. But it was
the strangely sombre, mask-like face which excited Redmond's interest
most. Beneath the broad, prominent brow of a thinker a pair of deep-set,
shadowy dark eyes peered forth, with the lifeless, unwinking stare of an
owl. Between them jutted a large, bony beak of a nose, with finely-cut
nostrils. The pitiless set of the powerful jaw was only partially
concealed by an eno