Vale, seeming to be too confused and terror-stricken to do anything but obey, went to the tree, and then darted away in the direction of the river. It takes time to read all this; but scarcely a minute appeared to have passed since Tod first came out with Whitney, and spoke of the half-crown. Giving Vale the fair start, the boys sprang after him, like a pack of hounds in full cry. Tod, the swiftest runner in the school, was following, when he found himself seized by Sanker. I had stayed behind.
“Have you been accusing Vale? Are you going to duck him?”
“Well?” cried Tod, angry at being stopped.
“It was not Vale who took the things. Vale! He is as innocent as you are. You’ll kill him, Todhetley; he cannot bear terror.”
“Who says he is innocent?”
“I do. I say it on my honour. It was another fellow, whose name I’ve been suppressing. This is your work, Johnny Ludlow.”
I felt a sudden rush of repentance. A conviction that Sanker spoke nothing but the truth.
“You said it was Vale, Sanker.”
“I never did. You said it. I told you you’d better believe it was any other rather than Vale. And I meant it.”
But that Sanker was not a fellow to tell a lie, I should have thought he told one then. The impression, resting on my memory, was that he acknowledged to its being Vale, if he had not exactly stated it.