“You’ll be,” said Sprat. “Not us.”
“Accomplices,” said Decker. “Oh, dear, oh!”
“Well,” said Brown, the coolest of us all, “the thing is done. It can’t be helped. All we can do is to hide it. We must put him back in his room and lock both doors, leaving the knife in his hand; then wash up the floor, burn the sheets, throw the boards out of the window, and go to bed. It will be called suicide, and we’ll escape.”
“But we’ve killed him,” said Decker. “I’m a murderer, so are you—all of you.”
“You don’t want to be hung, do you?” cried Brown. “We didn’t mean to do it. Shut up—don’t betray your[Pg 51]selves. Come, boys! Sprat, make a fire out of copy books. Roper, pitch these boards out of the window. Wait. Here, Decker, catch hold of poor Plug. We must have him in bed first.”
“I can’t touch him,” said Decker. “I’d die.”
“Then, Roper, come here!” said Brown. “Don’t mind. Shut your eyes, if you have to. What did we get ourselves in this box for? How his tongue sticks out, and how black it is! I’m sick—oh, how sick I am! I say, if we don’t hurry, we’ll all be hung! Think of your mothers! Mine would die! There, that’s brave!”
And so we carried poor Plug back into the little room we had dragged him from, and put him into bed, put the knife in his flabby hand, and rushed out, locking him in. Then it was easier to work, the three of us. Decker couldn’t do anything, and we covered him up in his bedclothes. It took Brown and Sprat and me all night to tear the big linen sheets up and burn them bit by bit, and to scrub the floor.
After that there was Decker in a sort of spasm, and we had to wash his hands and face, undress him, and wash his things like a baby.
Five o’clock struck when we finally tumbled into bed, cold and miserable and horror-stricken; but if we could have slept otherwise, Decker’s moans would have kept us awake.