The closet was very narrow, very hot, and very dusky, for the evening light came but sparsely through the little window. Just beneath the window, where whatever slight breeze entered the room could be felt, the old mattress was outspread, and on it Ned Lister lay. He had been resting his head upon his folded doublet, but at Miles's coming he drew himself up on his elbow; his face was white in the dimness, and he looked limp and sick and cowed.
"Here's bread and water, Ned," Miles began, as he crossed to him. "And—and I'm mighty sorry."
"I'm not," Ned answered, in a dogged tone. "I wish only that I'd killed him. Give me a drink." He took the jug from Miles and gulped down the water with audible swallowings; then, when he could drink no more, set it beside him. "They'd 'a' made little more tumult if I had killed him," he went on. "But I care not what they do to me."
"What—what do you think they will do to us, Ned?" Miles quavered; the young man's prisoned and unfriended state and desperate tone had dislodged him from his last stronghold of security.
"They spoke of flogging us," Ned answered hopelessly.
"A public flogging?"
"Yes."
It was only a birching Miles had looked for. A public flogging! The horror and fright were actual and overwhelming, for it never entered his head that in punishment a distinction would be made between the two principals in the duel and their wretched little second. "Flog us!" he repeated dazedly. "Or—or perhaps they will hang us?"
"I care not if they do," Ned retorted, and, taking up the jug, drained out the last of the water. "Fetch me another draught, Miley, that's a good lad," he begged. "My throat is all afire."
It was darker now in the living room, so none could note the expression of his face, and Miles was glad for that. When he filled the jug at the pail he slopped the water clumsily, so Mistress Hopkins chided him. He could not seem to think or even see, for, as he stumbled back into the closet, he bumped his forehead against the door. "Oh, Ned," he whispered, as he bent over the injured man again, "they—they have accused Francis in my place, but I—"