Still there was no legal proof on which to convict the prisoner.

No one doubted his guilt, and there were the strongest reasons, short of a downright certainty, for supposing that he commanded the lugger which had so recently fought the boats of the very ship in which the court was sitting; but notwithstanding, supposition was not the evidence the laws required; and the recent execution of Caraccioli had made so much conversation that few would condemn without seeing their justification before them.

Things were really getting to be seriously awkward, and the court was again cleared for the purpose of consultation.

In the private discourse that followed, Cuffe stated all that had occurred, the manner in which Raoul had been identified, and the probabilities--nay, moral certainties--of the case.

At the same time, he was forced to allow that he possessed no direct evidence that the lugger he had chased was a Frenchman at all, and least of all le Feu-Follet.