Ned turned his flushed, swollen, tear-stained face with a stare of blank amazement. He did not understand what the jailer meant, and he showed no recognition whatever of the newcomers.
The jailer suddenly noted the fact that the two gentlemen were evidently total strangers to Ned. He paused in his banter to look wonderingly from one to the other.
"I've come to bail you, youngster," said the elder of the two, affecting a familiarity which he by no means felt. "Get your hat!"
Ned mechanically obeyed. He was afraid to ask an explanation,—to speak a word,—lest it be discovered in some way that the extraordinary good luck in this deliverance was all a mistake.
The jailer still stared,—more than ever after the great gate had opened and let them out on the street. The two gentlemen walked on in advance, while Ned followed with an officer. The magistrate's office was but a little distance up the street on the opposite side, and there Ned, scarcely believing his eyes, watched the bold flourishes with which his two sureties signed his bail-bond, entering into an undertaking in the penal sum of one thousand dollars each for his appearance at the next term of the Criminal Court.
When these formalities were concluded he and his new friends came out together still in silence. He glanced instinctively over the way at the grim walls of the jail. There at the gate the jailer stood. He peered after them in the closing dusk as they walked silently away,—peered after them till the night seemed to swallow them up. "This beats all!" he ejaculated.
And still wondering he went back into his stronghold.
CHAPTER IX
It seemed to Ned that the best use he could make of his liberty was to pound Pete Bateman.