"I didn't take the watch; that boy handed it"--
"Shet up!" broke in the burly officer.
"But let me finish what I want"--
"Shet up! Heavens and earth! have I got to kill you before you stop that clack of yours?"
The lad saw that the only way to save his crown was to keep quiet, and he did so, trusting that in some way or other the truth would become known, the guilty punished, and the innocent allowed to go free.
One policeman grasped his right and the other his left arm, and they held on like grim death as they marched off toward the station-house.
Turning the next corner, they entered a still lower part of the city, where the darkest crimes of humanity are perpetrated.
Within ten feet of where Tom was walking, he saw under the gas-lamp a poor wretch on the pavement, with two others pounding him.
"Murder! murder!" groaned the victim, with fast-failing strength, vainly struggling to free himself from his assassins.
Tom paused, expecting the policemen, or at least one of them, would rush in and save the man.