“Steady, steady! You’re all right. Come, rouse up and have a wash, my lad. It’s nearly eight. Ready for some coffee and bread and butter?”
I looked up in the dim light to see the big, burly policeman leaning over me, while Esau was giving vent to a noisy yawn. It was morning, indeed, and though not aware of the fact, I must have slept about seven hours.
Chapter Six.
An Escape, and a Suggestion.
I don’t know whether I was any more cowardly than most boys of my age; but I certainly felt a curiously nervous sensation that morning, and I was not alone in it; for Esau had a strange scared look, and his fair hair did not curl nearly so tightly as usual.
“Eh?” he said, “feel frightened?” in answer to a question. “No, I don’t think I do; but I wish they’d leave the door open so that a fellow could run.”
But there were no doors open for us to escape, and at last, after a weary time of waiting, the big policeman who had us in his charge bent down to us in the place where we were waiting, and said—
“Your case comes on next. There, hold up, my lads. Speak out, both of you, like men, and tell the whole truth. It’s Sir Thomas Browning to-day.”