“Well, well:  on second thoughts I am not sure, Panky, but what you may be right after all; it is possible that he may be what I said he was in my sermon.”

“I rejoice to hear you say so,” said George, “for in this case the charge of poaching will fall through.  There will be no evidence against the prisoner.  And I rejoice also to think that I shall have nothing to warrant me in believing him to be a foreign devil.  For if he is not to be the Sunchild, and not to be your poacher, he becomes a mere monomaniac.  If he apologises for having made a disturbance in the temple, and promises not to offend again, a fine, and a few days’ imprisonment, will meet the case, and he may be discharged.”

“I see, I see,” said Hanky very angrily.  “You are determined to get this man off if you can.”

“I shall act,” said George, “in accordance with sworn evidence, and not otherwise.  Choose whether you will have the prisoner to be your poacher or no:  give me your sworn depositions one way or the other, and I shall know how to act.  If you depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner and your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned.  As to his being a foreign devil, if he is the Sunchild, of course he is one; but otherwise I cannot Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired, without testimony deposed to me on oath in private, though no open trial is required.  A case for suspicion was made out in my hearing last night, but I must have depositions on oath to all the leading facts before I can decide what my duty is.  What will you swear to?”

“All this,” said Hanky, in a voice husky with passion, “shall be reported to the King.”

“I intend to report every word of it; but that is not the point:  the question is what you gentlemen will swear to?”

“Very well.  I will settle it thus.  We will swear that the prisoner is the poacher we met on Thursday night, and that he is also a foreign devil:  his wearing the forbidden dress; his foreign accent; the foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one coming over from the other side; his obvious ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal his quails till our permit shewed him his blunder; the cock-and-bull story he told us about your orders, and that other story about his having killed a foreign devil—­if these facts do not satisfy you, they will satisfy the King that the prisoner is a foreign devil as well as a poacher.”

“Some of these facts,” answered George, “are new to me.  How do you know that the foot-tracks were made by the prisoner?”

Panky brought out his note-book and read the details he had noted.

“Did you examine the man’s boots?”

“One of them, the right foot; this, with the measurements, was quite enough.”

“Hardly.  Please to look at both soles of my own boots; you will find that those tracks were mine.  I will have the prisoner’s boots examined; in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at the statues on Thursday morning, walked three or four hundred yards beyond them, over ground where there was less snow, returned over the snow, and went two or three times round them, as it is the Ranger’s duty to do once a year in order to see that none of them are beginning to lean.”