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160 Tom lay awaiting the reaction which would follow as surely as the morning, and to-night it was before its time. The silence had been dead indeed, but not long so, when the creature leapt from his pallet with a scream. Next instant he was kneeling by its neighbour, fawning over Tom with trembling arms and twitching fingers.

“I done it! I done it!” he whispered hoarsely. “There—I had to tell somebody, and I have! I’d got to tell or burst. I feel better now.... No, no!” he was yelling next moment. “What have I said? I was joking, you flat—joking, I tell yer! Ha, ha, ha! It’s you that done yours; I never done mine at all!”

And he was strutting up and down the cell, trembling from head to foot, and laughing horribly through his chattering teeth.

But a worse sound yet cut his laughter short: it was the sound of voices and the rattling of keys.

Creasey inclined his bullet head one moment, then stumbled to the door, and fell heavily upon his knees.

“The Report!” he quavered. “Erichsen—the Report! It’s come—it’s come!”

CHAPTER XIX

THE ROYAL MERCY

condemned youths heard the next cell entered, and their comrade Carter roused from his bed. A key then grated in their own door, it was flung open, and there were Mr. Cope, the Governor, and a bevy of turnkeys in the passage.