He glanced at Lord Wellington sitting at the
table's end sternly inscrutable, a mere spectator, yet one whose
habit of command gave him an air that was authoritative and judicial.
At length he began to speak. He had considered his defence, and he
had based it mainly upon a falsehood - since the strict truth must
have proved ruinous to Richard Butler.
"My answer, gentlemen" he said, "will be a very brief one as brief,
indeed, as the prosecution merits - for I entertain the hope than
no member of this court is satisfied that the case made out against
me is by any means complete." He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly:
a man supremely self-controlled. "It amounts, indeed, to throwing
upon me the onus of proving myself innocent, and that is a burden
which no British laws, civil or miliary, would ever commit the
injustice of imposing upon an accused.
"That certain words of disagreement passed between Count Samoval and
myself on the eve of the affair in which the Count met his death, as
you have heard from various witnesses, I at once and freely admitted.
Thereby I saved the court time and trouble, and some other witnesses
who might have been caused the distress of having to testify against
me.
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