“How was the room lighted?”
“By a large lamp with a Rochester burner, and some fancy of hers had made her keep it turned up at full blaze. Oh, you could see every inch of the room at a glance! And then, too, I ran all round it before I ran to the window, pushed it up, and looked out. I would be willing to take my oath that the room was empty.”
“You looked under the bed?”
“Of course. And in the closet. I tell you, sir, there was no one in the room.”
Amos sat for the space of five minutes, it seemed to the young man, really perhaps for a full minute, thinking deeply. Then, “I can’t make it out,” said he, “but I believe you are telling the truth.” He stood up; the young man also rose. In the silence wherein the younger man tried to formulate something of his gratitude and yet keep his lip from quivering (for he had been sore beset by homesickness and divers ugly fears during the last day), the roar of the crowd without beat through the bars, swelling ominously. And now, all of an instant, the jail was penetrated by a din of its own making. The prisoners lost their heads. They began to scream inquiries, to shriek at each other. Two women whose drunken disorder had gone beyond the station-house restraints, and who were spending a week in jail, burst into deafening wails, partly from fright, partly from pity, and largely from the general craving of their condition to make a noise.
“Never mind,” said Amos, laying a kindly hand on young Allerton’s shoulder, “the Company B boys are all in the yard. But I guess you will feel easier if you go down-stairs. Parole of honor you won’t skip off?”
“Oh, God bless you, sir!” cried Allerton. “I couldn’t bear to die this way; it would kill my mother! Yes, yes, of course I give my word. Only let me have a chance to fight, and die fighting—”
“No dying in the case,” Amos interrupted; “but what in thunder are the cusses cheering for? Come on; this needs looking into. Cheering!”
He hurried down the heavy stairs into the hall, where Raker, a little paler, and Mrs. Raker, a little more flushed than usual, were examining the bolts of the great door.
Amos flung a glare of scorn at it, and he snorted under his breath: “Locks! No need of locking You! I could bust you with the hose!”