placid tone, "but we still hold the opinion that you can speak and
understand German!"

There was delay for a few minutes. Then the door opened and a second
later my interpreter stood beside me. How it was I did not jump into the
air I do not know, because the man summoned to assist me was none other
than the mysterious prisoner with whom I had been talking in the mute
alphabet.

This _dénouement_ almost unnerved me. I was now more positive than ever
that he had been deputed to spy upon me in prison. I looked at him
askance, but received not the slightest sign of recognition. I had
refused to entrust my cause to counsel and now I was placed in the hands
of an interpreter who, if he so desired, could wreak much more damage by
twisting the translations from English to suit his own ends.

As events proved, however, I could not have been in better hands. He was
highly intelligent, and he interpreted my statements with a fluency and
accuracy which were astonishing. Only now and again did he stumble and
hesitate. This was when he was presented with an unfamiliar expression
or idiomatic sentence.

As the trial proceeded I gained an interesting side-light upon German
methods and the mutual distrust which exists. Ostensibly, and so I was
led to believe, none of the Tribunal spoke English with any fluency, but
when, on one occasion, my interpreter was floored by a particularly
difficult colloquialism which I uttered, the Clerk of the Court came to
his aid, and in a moment turned the sentence properly to convey my
exact meaning. This revelation placed me on my guard more than ever,
because it was brought home to me very convincingly that if my