“Your name is Ithuel Bolt?” commenced the Judge Advocate.

“So they call me on board this ship—­but if I am to be a witness, let me swear freely; I don’t wish to have words put into my mouth, or idees chained to me with iron.”

As this was said, Ithuel raised his arms and exhibited his handcuffs, which the master-at-arms had refused to remove, and the officers of the court had overlooked.  A reproachful glance from Cuffe and a whisper from Yelverton disposed of the difficulty—­Ithuel was released.

“Now I can answer more conscientiously,” continued the witness, grinning sardonically; “when iron is eating into the flesh, a man is apt to swear to what he thinks will be most agreeable to his masters.  Go on, ’squire, if you have anything to say.”

“You appear to be an Englishman.”

“Do I?  Then I appear to be what I am not.  I’m a native of the Granite State, in North America.  My fathers went to that region in times long gone by to uphold their religious idees.  The whole country thereabouts sets onaccountable store by their religious privileges.”

“Do you know the prisoner, Ithuel Bolt—­the person who is called Raoul Yvard?”

Ithuel was a little at a loss exactly how to answer this question.  Notwithstanding the high motive which had led his fathers into the wilderness, and his own peculiar estimate of his religious advantages, an oath had got to be a sort of convertible obligation with him ever since the day he had his first connection with a custom-house.  A man who had sworn to so many false invoices was not likely to stick at a trifle in order to serve a friend; still, by denying the acquaintance, he might bring discredit on himself, and thus put it out of his power to be of use to Raoul on some more material point.  As between himself and the Frenchman, there existed a remarkable moral discrepancy; for, while he who prided himself on his religious ancestry and pious education had a singularly pliable conscience, Raoul, almost an Atheist in opinion, would have scorned a simple lie when placed in a situation that touched his honor.  In the way of warlike artifices, few men were more subtle or loved to practise them oftener than Raoul Yvard; but, the mask aside, or when he fell back on his own native dignity of mind, death itself could not have extorted an equivocation from him.  On the other hand, Ithuel had an affection for a lie—­more especially if it served himself, or injured his enemy; finding a mode of reconciling all this to his spirituality that is somewhat peculiar to fanaticism as it begins to grow threadbare.  On the present occasion, he was ready to say whatever he thought would most conform to his shipmate’s wishes, and luckily he construed the expression of the other’s countenance aright.

“I do know the prisoner, as you call him, ’squire,” Ithuel answered, after the pause that was necessary to come to his conclusion—­“I do know him well; and a master crittur he is when he fairly gets into a current of your English trade.  Had there been a Rule Yvard on board each of the Frenchmen at the Nile, over here in Egypt, Nelson would have found that his letter stood in need of some postscripts, I guess.”