"Yes. The jury wish to see it open." Mark untied the bow and pulled it off, his very freckles showing out red. It was a three-cornered silk neckerchief, as green as grass. "Was this like the kerchief you saw being swung about, Harry Dance?" asked the coroner, holding it up, and then letting it drop on the table. Harry Dance gazed at it as it lay, and shook his head. "I don't think it were the one, sir," he said. "Why don't you think it?" "That there looks smaller and brighter, and t'other was bigger and darker. Leastways, I think it were." "Was it more like this?" interrupted Dr. Teal, shaking out his handkerchief from his pocket. "I don't know, sir. It seemed like a big handkerchief, and was about that there colour o' your'n." Some inquiry was made at this point as to the neckerchiefs worn by the other boys. It turned out that two or three had worn very large ones, something the colour of Dr. Teal's. So that passed. "One word, Harry Dance. Did you see Ferrar with his handkerchief off that day?" "I didn't notice, sir: I don't remember. Some of us took 'em off on the hills--'twas very hot--and never put 'em on again all day." The coroner and jury talked together, and then Harry Dance was told to repeat the evidence he had given the day before. He went over it again: the sounds of quarrelling, and the words in the voice he had supposed to be King's: "Oh, don't--don't! you'll throw me over." "Had Ferrar his neckerchief on when you met him soon after this?" questioned Captain Chamberlain. "I think he had, sir. I think if he had not I should ha' noticed it. I'm nearly as sure as I can be that it wasn't off." When Dance was done with, Mark Ferrar was begun upon again. "What induced you to go off from your home on Wednesday evening without notice?" asked the coroner. "I went to South Crabb, sir." "I don't ask you where you went, I ask why you went?" "I go over there sometimes, sir. I told Sally I was going." "Can't you understand my question? _Why_ did you go?" "Nothing particular made me go, sir. Only that I had got some money; and I was feeling so sorry that the little lame boy was dead, I couldn't bear to be still." "You have been punished often, Mark Ferrar, for going off on these expeditions?" cried one of the jury. "I used to be, sir. Father has leathered me for it at home, and Clerk Jones at school. I can't do without going out a bit. I wish I was a sailor." "Oh, indeed! Well--is there one of your companions that you can suspect of having harmed this poor little boy--accidentally or otherwise?" "No, sir. It is being said that he was pushed over in ill-feeling, or else by accident; but it don't seem likely." "Did you push him over yourself?" "Me!" returned Ferrar, in surprise. "Me push him over!" "As far as we can learn yet, no one was with him there but you."