Page:The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923–1924.djvu/91

 "What nonsense art thou talking?" said the judge.

"No one carries coffee in a sack—coffee's a drink."

"Dost thou not know coffee, man?"

"How should I know gentlefolks' dainties?"

The judge looked at him for a while and then said:

"Come here—is not this thy compass?"

Parbu-Jaan reeled towards the table, purposely dragging his feet. With head on one side, he began to examine the compass.

"Well now, isn't that queer? It's moving—well, by it's dancing like anything, what's the matter with it?"

"Man, remember with whom thou speakest. Who am I?"

"Thou art one of God's errand boys. When God draws up the laws on the tables of stone, thou bringest them down to us."

"Man, where wert thou last week?"

"I sat in the threshing-barn as God had created me, the wife washing my only shirt."

"Confessest thou or not?"

"Of course I confess whatever the Judge-Lord wishes. To everything I say only yea and amen."

"Thou wert then in Memel?"

"Certainly."

"When did that occur?"

"It is hardly twenty years ago."

"Have a care what you say, man."

"That is what I'm doing, and a care for my back too. I am not altogether mad, though not so clever as your Honour."

"Pah! I have no time for lunatics."

Parbu-Jaan's head drooped lower, and a smile vanished in his bushy beard. He dragged himself after the warder out of the court, the warder staring at him with respect mingled with fear. In the prison yard he paused—looked up at a window to where two youthful heads gazed curiously down at him, and waved his hand with a toss of his skipper's beard. His nostrils dilated as though the scent of the sea had struck them.

Six hours later he was bound for Memel, in the bright moonshine of an August night—with thousands of tiny, winking stars for a compass.