“Had mine, my lad,” said the sergeant, laughing. “What’s the use of me giving you good advice if you don’t take it. There, good-bye, my lad. Banks was quite right.”
He nodded, faced round, and marched away, leaving Richard Frayne gazing at the black future before him as he muttered—
“Beaten! Why did I fight my way out of the flood?”
His next thought made him shudder: for a river was below there in the town, and he had crossed a bridge, beneath which the deep water flowed fast to where there was oblivion and rest.
He spoke mentally once more:
“Why not?”
As Richard Frayne gazed after the fat sergeant he failed to see the ridiculously fat back in the tight jacket for somehow he was looking inside at the man’s heart.
“But he does not know—he does not know,” muttered the lad, as he turned now and walked back toward the town street, down which he hurried with the intention of finding a quiet place where he could have a meal, and turned at last into a coffee-house, where he ordered tea and bread-and-butter, drinking the former with avidity, for he was feverishly thirsty, but the first mouthful of food seemed as if it would choke him, and he took no more.
Half an hour later he had another cup of tea, for his thirst seemed greater, and after that he went and wandered about the town, finding most rest in the shade of the great ruined Castle Keep, where the jackdaws sailed round, and cawed at him as if they were old friends from Primchilsea who recognised him and called out to their companions that he was below.
“What should he do,” he thought; “what should he do?” For his plan had been completely checked, and in the most unexpected way.