"Sit down!" roared the judge. "I say the dog shall be heard.
That ends the matter. Put the witness in the stand."

And then for the first time in the solemn history of England a
dog was put in the witness-stand of Her Majesty's Court of
Assizes. And it was I, Tommy Stubbins (when the Doctor made a
sign to me across the room) who proudly led Bob up the aisle,
through the astonished crowd, past the frowning, spluttering,
long-nosed Prosecutor, and made him comfortable on a high chair
in the witness-box; from where the old bulldog sat scowling down
over the rail upon the amazed and gaping jury.



THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

THE END OF THE MYSTERY

THE trial went swiftly forward after that. Mr. Jenkyns told the
Doctor to ask Bob what he saw on the "night of the 29th;" and
when Bob had told all he knew and the Doctor had turned it into
English for the judge and the jury, this was what he had to say:

"On the night of the 29th of November, 1824, I was with my
master, Luke Fitzjohn (otherwise known as Luke the Hermit) and
his two partners, Manuel Mendoza and William Boggs (otherwise
known as Bluebeard Bill) on their gold-mine in Mexico. For a
long time these three men had been hunting for gold; and they had
dug a deep hole in the ground. On the morning of the 29th gold