The Sage brightened and answered him thus: “Yes, Steve, it is a dreadful instrument of justice to deliver culprits up to the fury of Law—to trial, punishment, and torture.”
Steve, who had a very vague notion of what the word instrument means, instantly thought of thumb-screws, racks, and divers other engines of torture, that our “chivalrous” forefathers were so ingenious as to invent and so diabolical as to use.
“Boys,” said Charles, “we are in a worse scrape than ever before. It would be an awful thing if we should be sent to prison! Oh, it would kill my mother! Henry, do you really think Stolz could send us to prison?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry, in a mournful voice, little above a whisper.
“Look here, boys,” spoke the Sage, with his time-honored phraseology, “we have lost track of Marmaduke altogether. We must find out what has become of him.”
“O dear, if he is missing, I shall not care to live!” Henry declared sincerely. “Where do you suppose he is, boys? Is he a boy to take such a thing very much to heart?”
“I’m afraid he is,” Will acknowledged. “He takes everything so seriously that this will be almost too much for him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Henry asked bitterly.
With wildly beating hearts the little band began to search for the missing one, calling him imploringly by name and begging his forgiveness. The search was continued till Henry became so completely exhausted that he could no longer drag himself along; and then it was incumbent on the others to take him home.
As they drew near the village, one of them proposed to stop at Marmaduke’s home and inquire after him, in the faint hope that he might be there. The others agreed to this, but with little hope of receiving a favorable answer.