When he became—after hours of half-delirious raving—sufficiently calm to reflect upon and realise his position, nothing could be clearer than the explanation. Scales seemed, metaphorically, to have fallen from his eyes. How blind! How imbecile had he been, thus to walk into the trap with his eyes open! This, of course, was what the girl Tessie had meant when with such disproportionate earnestness she had warned him not to go on this ill-fated journey. She knew what Ned Lawless's past had been, what any 'business' of his was likely to be; and Kate—double-dyed hypocrite and false-tongued jade that she was—how she had lured him to his doom. Perhaps not exactly that, for, of course, his utter ignorance of their villainy would appear on the trial, if it went so far, and as to buying a stolen horse it was next to impossible to avoid that—numbers of people he knew had done so; and then, what motive could she have for enticing him to Balooka, when she must have known the tremendous risk to which she was exposing him? She, surely, had no reason to wish to injure him? Surely, surely, not after her words, her looks, her changes of voice and expression, all of which he knew so well! But throughout, and above and below all his thoughts, imaginings, and wonderings, came with recurring and regulated distinctness—What a fool I have been, what a fool, what a thrice-sodden idiot and lunatic! Now he knew what the friendly warning of Hastings meant. Now he understood Mrs. Polwarth's dislike and Jack's blunt disapproval of that intimacy.
It was easily explained. He had had to buy his experience. He had paid dearly for going to that school. And who were, proverbially, the people who would learn at no other? Fools, fools, again fools!
The day had passed without his touching the simple food which had been placed before him. At sundown the constable who came to see that his prisoner was all right for the night, pitying his evident misery, and accepting the non-absorption of food and drink as an incontestable proof of first offence, tried to persuade him to 'take it easy,' as he expressed it.
'You've never been shopped before, that's seen. Well, it's happened to many a good man, and will again. Don't go back on your tucker. You've a long ride before you. We shall start back for Ballarat to-morrow. If you get clear, you're all the better for not losing heart. If you don't, it won't matter one way or the other.'
Lance nodded his head. Speech—to talk as he did when he was that other man, the man who was a gentleman, free, proud, stainless, who never needed to lower his eyes or doff his hat to any living being—to him now speech was impossible.
The policeman looked at him, turned again, and shook his head and walked out, locking and bolting the door mechanically.
'Dashed if I can make out that case,' said the trooper to himself. 'Dayrell knows why he arrested that young fellow, I don't. Any child can see he didn't stand in with that crowd. They've had him soft, selling him a cross horse as any man might have knowed was too good for them to own on the square; but if he gives up the horse they can't touch him, I should think. He floored Dayrell though, and that'll go agin him. The sergeant can make it pretty hot for them as he don't fancy.'
Early next morning, half an hour after a pannikin of tea and a plate of meat surmounted by a large wedge of bread had been placed in his cell, Lance Trevanion was taken out and placed upon a horse. He was helped into the saddle, the feat of mounting in handcuffs being rather a difficult one to the inexperienced captive, as any gentleman may discover by tying his hands together and making the attempt. He was permitted to hold the reins by means of a knot at the end, and, with some limitation, to direct the animal's course. But a leading-rein was buckled to the snaffle, by which a mounted trooper led his horse. Ned Lawless, also handcuffed, was similarly accommodated. One trooper rode ahead, one behind. Neither of the prisoners' horses were such that if they had got loose and essayed to escape, would have had much chance by reason of superior speed. They were leg-weary screws, and were, indeed, nearly due for superannuation, the goal of which would be reached when they had carried (and risked the lives of) a few dozen more prisoners. Dayrell remained behind at Balooka. Possibly he had some reason for the delay, but if so he did not disclose it.
What a different return journey was this from the commencement of it, when Lance had set out so light of heart, so joyous of mood, his pockets full of money, his credit unlimited, all the world before him, as the ordinary phrase goes; able to pick and choose, as he supposed, among the world's pleasures and occupations, to select, to examine, to purchase, to refuse, at his pleasure. A good horse under him, the fresh forest breeze in each inhalation exhilarating every pulse as he rode at ease or at headlong speed through the winding forest track. A man, a gentleman, rich, successful, respected, more independent than a king and unlike him, free to come or to go at his own sovereign will and pleasure.
And now, how had a few short hours, a conspiracy, heedless imprudence, and malign fate changed and disfigured him. A prisoner fettered and confined, charged with a grave offence, at the mercy of a severe and unscrupulous officer whom he had been imprudent enough to defy and later on to resist, what might he not expect?