THE POMEROON TRAIL 81 



be, a criminal. There was I betwixt law and 

 police, and quite ready to believe that I had 

 committed something or other, with malicious 

 or related intent. 



But my thoughts were soon given another 

 turn as a loud rapping summoned us to our 

 feet at the entrance of the Judge. A few min- 

 utes before, we had been joking together and 

 companionably messing our fingers with oranges 

 upstairs. Now I gazed in awe at this impassive 

 being in wig and scarlet vestments, whose mere 

 entrance had brought us to our feet as if by 

 religious or royal command. I shuddered at my 

 memory of intimacies, and felt quite certain we 

 could never again sit down at table as equals. 

 When we had resumed our seats there was a 

 stir at the opposite end of the courtroom, and 

 a half-dozen gigantic black policemen entered, 

 and with them a little, calm-faced, womanly 

 man Ram Narine, the wielder of the club and 

 the rock. He ascended to the fenced-in prison- 

 ers' dock, looking, amid all his superstrong bar- 

 riers to freedom, ridiculously small and inoffen- 

 sive, like a very small puppy tethered with a 

 cable. He gazed quietly down at the various 

 ominous exhibits. A and B were the club and 



