“Where did you find him?” asked the surgeon of the men.

“Down there, commandant, behind that big bush, to the right of Lieut.  Champcey, and a little behind him.”

“Why do you accuse him?”

“Why?  We have good reasons, I should think.  He was hiding.  When we saw him, he was lying flat on the ground, trembling with fear; and we said at once, ‘Surely, there is the man who fired that shot.’”

The man had, in the meantime, raised himself, and assumed an air of almost provoking assurance.

“They lie!” he exclaimed.  “Yes, they lie, the cowards!”

This insult would have procured him a sound drubbing, but for the old surgeon, who held the arm of the first sailor who made the attack.  Then, continuing his interrogatory, he asked,—­

“Why did you hide?”

“I did not hide.”

“What were you doing there, crouching in the bush?”

“I was at my post, like the others.  Do they require a permit to carry arms in Cochin China?  I was not invited to your hunting party, to be sure; but I am fond of game; and I said to myself, ’Even if I were to shoot two or three head out of the hundreds their drivers will bring down, I would do them no great harm.’”

The doctor let him talk on for some time, observing him closely with his sagacious eye; then, all of a sudden, he broke in, saying,—­

“Give me your gun!”

The man turned so visibly pale, that all the officers standing around noticed it.  Still he did what he was asked to do, and said,—­

“Here it is.  It’s a gun one of my friends has lent me.”

The doctor examined the weapon very carefully; and, after having inspected the lock, he said,—­

“Both barrels of your gun are empty; and they have not been emptied more than two minutes ago.”

“That is so; I fired both barrels at an animal that passed me within reach.”

“One of the balls may have gone astray.”

“That cannot be.  I was aiming in the direction of the prairie; and, consequently, I was turning my back to the place where the officer was standing.”

To the great surprise of everybody, the doctor’s face, ordinarily crafty enough, now looked all benevolent curiosity,—­so much so, that the two sailors who had captured the man were furious, and said aloud,—­

“Ah! don’t believe him, commandant, the dirty dog!”

But the man, evidently encouraged by the surgeon’s apparent kindliness, asked,—­

“Am I to be allowed to defend myself, or not?”

And then he added in a tone of supreme impudence,—­

“However, whether I defend myself or not, it will, no doubt, be all the same.  Ah! if I were only a sailor, or even a marine, that would be another pair of sleeves; they would hear me!  But now, I am nothing but a poor civilian; and here everybody knows civilians must have broad shoulders.  Wrong or right, as soon as they are accused, they are convicted.”