“Why, Boyne!” he cried.
“Oh, Mr. Breckon!” Boyne wailed back. “Is it you? Oh, do tell them I didn’t mean to do anything! I thought she beckoned to me.”
“Who? Who beckoned to you?”
“The Queen!” Boyne sobbed, while the detectives pulled him relentlessly on.
Breckon addressed them suavely in their owe tongue which had never come in more deferential politeness from human lips. He ventured the belief that there was a mistake; he assured them that he knew their prisoner, and that he was the son of a most respectable American family, whom they could find at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. He added some irrelevancies, and got for all answer that they had made Boyne’s arrest for sufficient reasons, and were taking him to prison. If his friends wished to intervene in his behalf they could do so before the magistrate, but for the present they must admonish Mr. Breckon not to put himself in the way of the law.
“Don’t go, Mr. Breckon!” Boyne implored him, as his captors made him quicken his pace after slowing a little for their colloquy with Breckon. “Oh, where is poppa? He could get me away. Oh, where is poppa?”
“Don’t! Don’t call out, Boyne,” Breckon entreated. “Your father is right here at the end of the street. He’s in the carriage there with Miss Kenton. I was coming to look for you. Don’t cry out so!”
“No, no, I won’t, Mr. Breckon. I’ll be perfectly quiet now. Only do get poppa quick! He can tell them in a minute that it’s all right!”
He made a prodigious effort to control himself, while Breckon ran a little ahead, with some wild notion of preparing Ellen. As he disappeared at the corner, Boyne choked a sob into a muffed bellow, and was able to meet the astonished eyes of his father and sister in this degree of triumph.
They had not in the least understood Breckon’s explanation, and, in fact, it had not been very lucid. At sight of her brother strenuously upheld between the detectives, and dragged along the sidewalk, Ellen sprang from the carriage and ran towards him. “Why, what’s the matter with Boyne?” she demanded. “Are you hurt, Boyne, dear? Are they taking him to the hospital?”