"Oh, yassuh. We's fine, at Miz' Rivers' who'-house."
Even the adjudicator didn't try to stop the peal of laughter and applause that this provoked, and Drusilla and Messalina smiled around happily and preened themselves under all this male attention. But Clitheroe just sat down, red in the face, and Anderson got up and waited for the noise to subside.
"A very moving story," says he, and everyone roared again. "Tell me, Drusilla and Messalina — I don't doubt for a moment that every word you have told us is true, and I accept it as true — but tell me, you first, Messalina dear: where were you born?"
"Why … Baton Rouge, suh."
"And you, Drusila?"
"N'Awlins, suh."
"Indeed. Very interesting. And how did you come to be at Roatan?"
Messalina had been taken by a wealthy planter visiting Cuba; she had been his mistress, but he had tired of her and sold her. ("Silly bastard," says the unseen voice.) Drusilla had been one of a party taken on a cruise by wealthy degenerates, who had sold their doxies at various places in the Caribbean.
"So you are both American-born? I see — and both born slaves?"
"Yassuh."
"The other girls on the ship with you — were they also American-born? You don't know-of course not. And they have not been cited as witnesses in this case, and can't be called now, accordingly." Anderson glanced knowingly across the court at Clitheroe, who was looking like a man who sees a ghost. "May I refresh the court's memory by referring to the enactment of 1820" — he rattled off a string of numbers while he leafed through a large tome. "Here we have it. Briefly it defines as piracy and illegal slave-trading —" he paused impressively "— the transportation for enslavement of any coloured person who is not already a slave under American law."
In the hush that followed Anderson closed the book with a snap like a pistol shot.
"There we have it, sir. Captain Spring, as he has admitted, freely and openly, was carrying slaves — American slaves, born slaves, and in so doing he was in no way contravening any United States law. No more than a man breaks the law when he carries a slave across the Mississippi River. He was not running slaves, or slave-trading in the illicit sense, or —"
Clitheroe was on his feet, raging. "This is an outrageous twisting of the truth — why, just because these two happen to be American-born — why, they were only chosen to testify because they spoke English well — half of their fellow-captives on the Balliol College, I am certain, were not American-born, and were therefore —"
"Then it's a pity you didn't bring them here today," says Anderson. "You should choose your witnesses more carefully."
"Sir, this is monstrous!" cries Clitheroe. "In the name of justice, I demand to be allowed to call another —"
"In the name of justice you'll keep us here till kingdom come!" cries Anderson. "Really, sir, are we to be detained while this distinguished counsel rakes the whole of Louisiana for some witness who will suit his book? He has entered his witnesses before this court — let him abide by what they say. If they let him down, so much the worse for him, and so much the better for justice!"
There was no doubt whose side the spectators were on. They cheered and stamped and drowned out everyone until the little adjudicator had to shout for silence. And after several minutes, when all was quiet, he remarked:
"You had ample time to consider who you should call, sir. I'll hear the witnesses you have named."
"I protest!" cries Clitheroe, his white hair flung back. "I protest — but very well, sir — you shall hear my last witness, who will prove my case for me!" And as my heart shot into my mouth he turned and boomed:
"Beauchamp Millward Comber, Royal Navy!"
I suppose I took the oath, but I don't remember it. Then Clitheroe was taking me through my antecedents, my commissioning by the Board of Trade, my shipping aboard the Balliol College — all of which I had to invent, on the spur of the moment, and it wasn't made any easier by the unseen voice growling: "Goddam' limey spy!" — and so to the business he wanted to get his teeth into.
"You can, I think, testify, that when the Balliol College reached Dahomey, she took aboard not palm oil, as the defendant claims — but a human cargo. Slaves! Is this not so?"
But Anderson, bless his honest fat face, was on his feet. "This is quite improper, sir! I demand that the witness be instructed to ignore the question. We are not here concerned with what the British master of a Mexican ship was doing many thousands of miles from our shore. Such a case, if any there were, would be for a British or Mexican court, or a mixed commission of the type to which the United States does not subscribe. I demand — nay, insist — that no irrelevant observations, such as might prejudice my client's position, be permitted. We are here to determine the status of the Balliol College at the time of her seizure —" and he went bounding on to cite a great string of precedents — Bright Des patch, Rosalinda, Ladies' Delight, heaven knows what.
It sounded a near thing to me; I stood there with my palms sweating, and if that adjudicator had been an honest man I'd have been sunk. But someone had been to work, I've no doubt, for he shook his head, and snapped:
"I take the point of defendant's counsel. We are not concerned with the Captain's past history —"
"Or his ship's?" bawls Clitheroe. "What about Mendon, Uncas, any number I could name, sir — why, slavers have been condemned before ever they had taken a black on board, simply on a question of intent! This —"
"May I make a point, sir?" says Anderson. "I respectfully suggest that it would ill become an American court to deny to a British master the very rights which we insist upon for our own captains where British justice is concerned. We demand that our captains be not interfered with unless they expressly break British law; it cannot be argued that what Captain Spring was doing thousands of miles away, in a Mexican ship, is any concern of ours."
"Humbug —" Clitheroe was beginning, but Anderson added quickly:
"The court would hardly wish to set a precedent of which foreign governments, particularly the British, might take note."
That clinched it. The adjudicator glanced at me: "You will ignore that question, sir. Mr Clitheroe, I must ask you to confine yourself to the matter in hand. Proceed, sir."
"I protest again, most emphatically," says Clitheroe. "Very well, then — Mr Comber, were these negroes who were carried from Roatan for Havana — were they chained, sir?"
"Most of the time, not," says I, which was true.
"But chains were placed upon them when the American brig challenged the Balliol College?"
"Yes." I tried not to catch Spring's eye.
"Why were they chained, sir?"
"To prevent their possible escape, I imagine. I was below decks at the time."
He gave me an odd look. "Was there not another reason? Was it not so that a length of anchor chain could be rove through their shackles, so that they could be brutally hurled into the deep and drowned?" He looked at his papers. "I quote from your own statement to the Navy Department."
Up came Anderson. "May I point out that this … statement, supposedly made by the witness, is not in itself evidence. We are concerned with what he says now, not what he said then."
I could feel the sweat starting out on my brow. How to balance the tightrope? Talk for your life, Flash, thinks I, so I looked perplexed, and said, addressing the adjudicator:
"Sir, I have reflected much on this matter in the past few months. That the slaves were shackled, and the anchor chain passed between those shackles, is true — I myself released them later. But in strict justice I must add that the shackling was performed by the late Mr Sullivan, mate of the Balliol College, and it was followed by a most violent altercation between Sullivan and Captain Spring."