"Yes. And I've often planned to bunk it! But—Man alive!—he's frightfully clever. He knows a Scout sticks to his Word of Honour—and he always asks for my Parole."
"F'f! That's a poser, old son." Franky considered. "If I were in your shoes I'd take to givin' the strictly limited parole. Two hours—or three—or four.... There's a chance if the time expires without renewal—of being able to—perpetuate a strictly honourable bunk. So, best Kid, live in hopes and watch out for chances, and one day——"
The speaker's voice trailed off into indistinctness. A deadly vertigo came upon him. He sank amidst swirling waves of grey nothingness, to emerge after æons, to consciousness of the morning sunshine, and the warm rain dropping on his clammy cheek and hand.
"Oh, oh! I thought you were dead!" It was the wailing voice he had heard long ages back. "Like all the other people.... The poor men and women and the little children——"
"Dead! Not a bit of it! Only shamming for a drink," Frankly whispered, as the cup with its blessing of cool water revisited his baked lips: "Look here. Where did you tell me your Flying Devil was?"
The boy said, with a scared glance through the breached front wall of the baker's parlour, out into the street where the golden sunshine played upon War's havoc and desolation:
"I said he went into the restaurant in the square where the—the dead people are piled up—to hunt about for wine."
"I remember. What's that?"
The gaunt eyes rolled towards the yawning gap where once had been the window. The white lips whispered, "Did you hear? I'll swear somebody laughed."
Both held their breath. Not a sound reached them except the sliding of some débris from a pile of shattered masonry, and the gurgling of the water in the broken street-main. Franky mustered breath and went on: