"Now, Mahomed Khan, when did you hear
from Murdaree of this homicide?"

"What shall I say to your Highness but
the truth? He came to me three days after
the deed was done—in the morning—when I
was going to make my report to the Darogah,
of the night's general occurrences."

"What did you, then?"

"I informed the Darogah, and he made a
report to the Thannadar; and his Highness
sent a Jemadar and four burkundazes to
find the body in the sugar cane khet
(plantation)."

"Did you find it?"

"By God's favour, and your lordship's
fortune, the body was found."

"Was it still warm and bleeding?"

"Your slave saw that it was warm and
bleeding." (Hubble, bubble, bubble.)

''As if life had only just left it? Perhaps
the murdered man moved?

"He might have moved. He did move."

"And this was three days after the event?"

Mahomed Khan looks a little white—as
white as a black man can look. He hems
again with difficulty.

"Look at the prisoner at the bar. Did
you take him into custody?"

"He was taken by me. I found him in
his house with his family. I knew he was
the murderer by Ameer Singh's description."

The prisoner here bursts out, "Ah Bapree,
bap, the Ameer Singh is my enemy, Mahomed
Khan is—

"Choop!" interposes the burkundaze—
a friend of Mahomed's.

Mahomed Khan continues his story—" I
called Ishmael, another peon, and we took
him to the chowkey. He said, at first, he
was not the murderer, but Ameer Khan was
sent for and saw his face, and then the
prisoner offered money and told the truth
that he was the murderer—wherefore the
Thannadar made the report."

The unhappy creature in the fetters makes
two or three spasmodic efforts to be heard;
but the voice of authority stifles his insolent
attempts to deny what is so very clear.

The grain-seller's evidence did not vary
very materially from that of the cowherd.
They were only at issue upon the point of
time. The grain-seller vowed he heard the
cries in the evening.

The Magistrate paused, turned over the
depositions and smiled. Then addressing one of
the court functionaries, he bade him ask the
unhappy prisoner what he had to say;
cautioning him against self condemnation. The
poor man, holding up his hands, commenced
a rambling protestation of his innocence—
"God is above, and your lordship is below!
What shall I say but this is all false? I am
very poor—Mahomed, peon, wanted four
rupees—where was I to get four rupees?
I know nothing of this business. Some
tiger killed the man—Ameer Khan is my
enemy—I have five children—" Here the
vociferations of the culprit's wife are heard
in the verandah, warmly supported by those
of some female friends who had accompanied
her to the court, and all the graves of all
the ancestors of all the witnesses are
metaphorically defiled, and their mothers and
aunts and sisters and brothers' wives and
cousins covered with verbal opprobrium.

The Magistrate, turning to me, now
observed that this was one of those perplexing
cases which his old friend Curricle would
have settled by tossing up a rupee, leaving
the guilt or innocence of the prisoner to the
issue of heads or tails. It was clear there
had been a murder, but he "couldn't be
bothered," sifting it more closely. He should
send the case to be tried by the Zillah judge.
The man couldn't be worse off in jail than
he would be if back at his village with the
odium of crime upon him; and, to be
acquitted by the superior court would be of
more use to him than a magisterial dismissal
of the case. To the discrepancy in the matter
of the time of the alleged murder he attached
no weight, because natives never seemed to
have clear ideas of time or distance. Nor did
the imputation of a wish for a bribe on the
part of the police officer influence his judgment;
for, in every case, all the limbs of the
law demanded fees of the guilty, of the
innocent, of the witnesses subpœnaed, of the
witnesses who did not wish to come, of the
people who knew all about it, and of the people
who knew nothing about it. Buxis and a
feast of sweetmeats were levied from some one,
whenever a Thannadar had to report upon a
great murder, robbery or burglary. The
native officers were so badly paid by the
Government that they could not afford to be
honest. I listened with respectful astonishment,
and presently heard the Magistrate
decree the reference of the case to a higher
tribunal.

A highway robbery, or dacoity case, next
came on. The witnesses were numerous; one
half diametrically opposed the statements of
the other half; perjury was established against
three of them, and Mornington Jumps, in
despair of reaching the truth, dismissed the
charge.

The scene that I had witnessed did not
impress me with a very favourable opinion of
the manner in which the law is administered
in the Mofussil, or interior of India; and I
could not help expressing, on our way home,
my satisfaction that the fates had decreed my
residence within the jurisdiction of the
supreme court at the Presidency, where English
lawyers, albeit once the most briefless of the
Inner Temple, administer justice something
after the mode of Westminster Hall. My
excellent friend laughed at my simplicity, as
he was pleased to call it, and asked if I had
never heard of the "glorious uncertainty?"

"What," said Mornington Jumps, "would
you have? Here are a handful of English
administering justice "—he would say justice