One glance at his judges was enough to
convince him of the futility of expectation. He was tried by a
court-martial presided over by General Carlo. Beside him sat a
Colonel Onate and Lieutenant Chaves. In none of the three did he
find any room for hope. Carlo was a hater of Americans and a
butcher by temperament and choice, Chaves a personal enemy of the
prisoner, and Onate looked as grim an old scoundrel as Jeffreys
the hanging judge of James Stuart. Governor Megales, though not
technically a member of the court, was present, and took an
active part in the prosecution. He was a stout, swarthy little
man, with black, beady eyes that snapped restlessly to and fro,
and from his manner to the officers in charge of the trial it was
plain that he was a despot even in his own official family.
The court did not trouble itself with forms of law. Chaves was
both principal witness and judge, notwithstanding the protest of
the prisoner. Yet what the lieutenant had to offer in the way of
testimony was so tinctured with bitterness that it must have been
plain to the veriest novice he was no fit judge of the case.
But Bucky knew as well as the judges that his trial was a merely
perfunctory formality.
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