Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing,
Clip?--turn him face up. That's for blackguarding me before the whole
house! Clip put me up to it. Don't cut and leave me in the lurch, I
say. You're locking me in the boot-box!--let me out--I'm in for the
mile, you know. Who's got my shoes? _Pastor_ _cum traheret per freta
navibus_. Well run, sir! He's giving out! I say, I say. I can't keep
it up. I must stop. Clip, you put me up to it, old man. It'll never
come out--never--never. He thinks it was Railsford, ho, ho! I'll never
do such a thing again. Come along--sharp--coast's clear!"

Then he began to conjugate a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words
and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford
gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of
Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely
ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over again
in detail that dark night's work in the boot-box; now he was construing
Homer to the doctor; now he was being run down in the mile race; now he
was singing one of his old child's hymns; now he was laughing over the
downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating
society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild
incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford
harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the
picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and
over in the boy's wild ravings effectually dispelled them.

He knew now the whole of the wretched story from beginning to end. The
proud boy's resentment at the insult he had received in the presence of
his house, the angry passions which had urged him to the act of revenge,
the cowardly precautions suggested by his confederate to escape
detection, and the terrors and remorse following the execution of their
deep-laid scheme. Yet if the listener had no right to the secret locked
up in the desk, still less had he the right to profit by these sad
delirious confessions.

Towards morning the poor exhausted sufferer, who during the night had
scarcely remained a moment motionless, or abated a minute in his wild,
wandering talk, sunk back on his pillow and closed his eyes like one in
whom the flame of life had sunk almost to the socket. Railsford viewed
the change with the utmost alarm, and hastened to give the restoratives