Then he saw Orion hanging over him, very low in the windy sky, shaking with frost. His eyes fixed themselves on the constellation, then gradually he became aware of the sides of a cart, of the smell of straw, of the movement of other bodies that sighed and stirred beside him. The physical experience was now complete, and soon the emotional had shaped itself. Memory came, rather sick. He remembered the fight, his terror, the flaming straw, the crowd that constricted and crushed him like a snake. His rage and hate rekindled, but this time without focus--he hated just everyone and everything. He hated the wheels which jolted him, his body because it was bruised, the other bodies round him, the stars that danced above him, those unknown footsteps that tramped beside him on the road. Where was he? He raised himself on his elbow, and immediately a head looked over the side of the cart. "Wot's the matter wud you?" asked a gruff voice. "I want to know where I'm going, surelye." "You're going to Rye, that's where you're going, just fur a täaste of the rope's end, you young varmint." The tones were not unkindly, and Reuben plucked up courage. "Is the fight over?" "Surelye! It all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw the constables. Fifty speshul constables sworn in at Rye Town Hall, all of 'em wud truncheons! You couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'em." "Reckon that lot had just about crunched me up. I feel all stove in." "And you'll feel stove in furder when the Crier's done wud you." It was part of the Rye Town Crier's duties to flog the unruly youth of the district. Reuben made a face--not that he minded being flogged, but he felt badly bruised already. He fell back on the straw, and buried his head in it. They were on the Playden road, near Bannister's Town, and he would have time for a sleep before they came to Rye. Sleep helped things wonderfully. But the strange thing was that he could not sleep, and stranger still, it was not the ache of his body that kept him awake, but the ache of his heart. Reuben was used to curling up and going to sleep like a little dog; only once had he lain awake at night, and that was with the toothache. Now he had scarcely any pain; indeed, the dull bruised feeling made him only more drowsy, but in his heart was something that made him tumble and toss, just as the aching tooth had done, made him want to snarl and bite. He rolled over and over in the straw, and was wide awake when they came to Rye. Neither did he sleep at all in the room where he and some other boys were locked for the night. The Battery gaol was full of adult rioters, so the youthful element--only some half-dozen captured--was shut up in the constable's house, where it played marbles and twisted arms till daylight.