Then, while the audience were still puzzling what the last words meant, he suddenly indulged in one of those abrupt transitions for which he was famous, and burst out: 

“Down with foreigners!  We Catholics know what foreigners are, how they work for evil in places high and low.  One cannot take up a daily paper without seeing some exposure of their many-sided viciousness.  They contaminate the land with their godless depravity.  Nobody can count on immunity.  The highest officials in the land, the very Ministers of the Crown, are subjected to their vile disguised attempts at bribery and corruption, no humble peasant girl, no child, is safe from the befoulment of their filthy minds.  We know them—­our police records, the archives of our Courts of Justice, testify to their demoralizing agency.  A pest, a contagion!  Who can tell what proposals were made in this particular case—­what degrading proposals, backed by the insidious offer of foreign gold?  A weak character might have succumbed.  But the victim was made of different stuff.  He belonged to another type—­the heroic type.  Suffering anguish of soul, he yet preferred honour to baseness.  In self-defence—­”

At this point the great Deputy ceased to speak.  Signor Malipizzo had swooned away.  He had to be carried out of Court.

It mattered little, for the proceedings were at an end save for a few formalities.  The case was won.

People were rather annoyed at being deprived of one of Don Giustino’s far-famed perorations.  It could not be helped.  Better luck next time.  Then they asked themselves why the judge had fainted.  Some thought it might be the heat, or a touch of his old complaint.  The majority were agreed that the attack was due to the Deputy’s eloquence.  And it was true that he was greatly impressed by the speech, but not quite as much as all that.  He had decided to faint at a critical moment, for the sake of appearances.  It was clever of him.  He did it beautifully too; he had been rehearsing half the night.  Don Giustino, on his part, shared the common opinion and was charmed with this tribute to his genius.  Altogether, the local judge had made a favourable impression on him; his attitude had been irreproachably correct.  He was not a bat fellow, for a freemason.  One might do worse than leave him in possession of his present appointment on Nepenthe.

The Deputy freed his prisoner; it was unavoidable.  But the Russians remained in gaol, and this was always something to the credit of Signor Malipizzo. . . .

Madame Steynlin, on hearing of Peter the Great’s arrest, was stricken dumb.  She wept the bitterest tears of all her life.  Then, with returning calmness, she remembered Mr. Keith whose friendship with the magistrate was the common talk of the place.  Would he be able to do anything?  Impulsive by nature, she called on that gentleman and poured out her griefs to him.  Mr. Keith was sympathetic.  He declared he understood perfectly.  He promised to do his utmost, that very day.