‘Carry him inside,’ said I. ‘It won’t hurt us to have a hostage.’
Denny lifted the lad in his long arms—Denny was a tall powerful fellow—and strode off with him. I followed, wondering who it was that we had got hold of: for the boy was strikingly handsome. I was last in and barred the door. Denny had set our prisoner down in an armchair, where he sat now, conscious again, but still with a dazed look in his large dark eyes as he glanced from me to the rest and back again to me, finally fixing a long gaze on my face.
‘Well, young man,’ said I, ‘you’ve begun this sort of thing early. Lifting cattle and taking murder in the day’s work is pretty good for a youngster like you. Who are you?’
‘Where am I?’ he cried, in that blurred indistinct kind of voice that comes with mental bewilderment.
‘You’re in my house,’ said I, ‘and the rest of your infernal gang’s outside and going to stay there. So you must make the best of it.’
The boy turned his head away and closed his eyes. Suddenly I snatched the lantern from Hogvardt. But I paused before I brought it close to the boy’s face, as I had meant to do, and I said:
‘You fellows go and get something to eat, and a snooze if you like. I’ll look after this youngster. I’ll call you if anything happens outside.’
After a few unselfish protests they did as I bade them. I was left alone in the hall with the prisoner; soon merry voices from the kitchen told me that the battle was being fought again over the wine. I set the lantern close to the boy’s face.
‘H’m,’ said I, after a prolonged scrutiny. Then I sat down on the table and began to hum softly that wretched chant of One-Eyed Alexander’s, which had a terrible trick of sticking in a man’s head.
For a few minutes I hummed. The lad shivered, stirred uneasily, and opened his eyes. I had never seen such eyes; I could not conscientiously except even Beatrice Hipgrave’s, which were in their way quite fine. I hummed away; and the boy said, still in a dreamy voice, but with an imploring gesture of his hand: