Now the law of the land is not that kind of a bush. Pete, metaphorically speaking, was still stone blind.
He had a vague realization of this fact when the policeman said agreeably, "Come, youngster, we've got to go back. Ye'll get some breakfast then—if ye're able ter eat it."
Pete was amazed and half frightened. Then he straightened himself up like a man.
"I've got a right ter my trial now,—like other drunk an' disorderlies," he protested. "I wanter go home."
"Cheese it!" the policeman succinctly admonished him. "Ye're ter be held fur a witness against they arrest that other boy."
"But they ain't got no right ter lock me up—an' me jes' a witness," blustered Pete.
The policeman laughed lazily, languidly turning his quid of tobacco between his teeth. "A boy is never such a fool as when he undertakes ter know everything! I've seen a magistrate commit a slippery witness ter jail in default o' bond fur safe-keeping against a trial. But it's just the lock-up ye're goin' ter,—you ain't had your trial yet,—an' 't ain't fur long. Come on. Stir yer stumps."
So all the rest of that day Pete lay upon his narrow bunk, bemoaning his luck that he had ever seen Ned, groaning because of his aching head and flimsy stomach, wondering what had really happened at the theatre, what part Ned could have borne in it, what Ned would say when confronted with his false and perjured friend, and how the familiar building looked lying low and in ruins.
Dreary enough, to be sure,—with the charred heaps of timber and bricks, the smouldering embers and ashes, and the smoke still curling up into the May sunshine. The east wall, although tottering and with great blackened gaps, still stood. Against one of the frescoed panels and close to the ruins of a proscenium box was a gilded mask of Folly in alto-rilievo. The decorator had substituted for the more usual delineations of comedy and tragedy a jester's head and bauble and, on the opposite side of the proscenium, as the antithesis of frivolity, the type of heroism, a knight's helmet with closed visor and the point of a lance. This mask had fallen with the west wall, but the smirched face of Folly, surmounted by the smoke-grimed cap and bells, still leered fantastically down upon the ruins. It was not without sarcastic suggestions. Where so much of worth had perished Folly yet remained. It was a prominent object and attracted much attention. As Ned, who was out on an errand, paused among a knot of idlers and shading his eyes with his hand looked up, its grimace seemed to him less jocose than sinister. He thought of all that he and it had witnessed last night. This was a secret between them. He resolved that he would be as dumb as the dumb image. Neither had made a sign as yet—save—all at once a grotesque fancy crossed him! In the flicker of the sunshine and the shimmering undulations of the smoke the face looked at him—and winked!
He knew that this was only a fancy, but it frightened him. Was he going to be ill? he asked himself. Was he losing his self-control, his hold on his sharp wits? He turned away hastily. He felt that he could not maintain his self-possession in the presence of the crowd if Folly should again mysteriously, fraternally, sign to him.