It was still darkish as the array of vans filed along the London road, and, in the confusion, Ned lost sight of the van in which Alick had got a lift beside the lady in curl-papers. And no wonder! for the fact was, the show had parted in two divisions—one going to be stationed in the East End, somewhere about Whitechapel, the other portion to traverse the suburbs south of the Thames.

It thus happened that the two Northbourne boys were separated, as they each discovered when the day wore on. Worse still: they found, to their dismay, that they had been entrapped artfully. A couple of useful boys were desperately needed, as a fever had been hanging about the show, breaking out at fitful intervals, and the chief victims had been the boy-helpers, who, one after another, dropped off, some to hospitals, others to die, like rats in the holes that were all the homes they knew.

The welcome accorded to Alick and Ned was thus explained. The showwoman was secretly overjoyed to give the strangers a lift on their journey. But before the first day closed in the pair of adventurers found out what real hard work meant. Even Ned Dempster, accustomed to the dilatory, easy-going life of sea-fishing, knew nothing indeed of the drudgery and hustling and flurry of such everyday work as he had stepped into, unawares, among the rough caravan folk.

Alick, of course, was thunderstruck and stupefied to find himself at everybody's rude beck and call. And to have his awkward, bewildered movements hurried on by hard cuffs and violent language was an unpleasantly new experience for a Carnegy to endure. His indignant attempts at rebelling were treated with loud jeers, and by savage threats of a horse-whipping. The latter menace was carried out before the week was over, on the unhappy boy obstinately refusing to clean out the animals' cages, to fetch and carry the food for birds and beasts, and to perform a hundred other distasteful offices.

'I'll teach ye; I'll conduct your education, young sir!' shouted the ring-master. 'And here's the lesson-book!' he sneered, flourishing a cruel-looking whip.

Stunned and crushed, Alick had asked repeatedly to see Ned, and also entreated to be permitted to leave the show at once. His requests were, of course, harshly refused. In addition, he was sternly warned that if he attempted to escape he would be horse-whipped again, and next-door to death.

'They're a catch for us, them two!' the brutal ring-master remarked to his wife, as he and she sat at their supper after the performance was over one evening. 'That tallest youngster's a swell as has run away from 'ome, judging from his looks and clothes. He's just what we've bin wantin' for a long time back. The fust thing to do is to break that 'igh speerit of his, and then we'll set to work to train him to show off with the leopards. That would draw famous with the public.'

'Not with the leopards! Not with them beasts! They're the worst and the fiercest in the show. 'Tis next-door to impossible to tame a leopard. I won't 'ave it, I tell you, so there!' the woman broke in, with a high-pitched voice.

'Well, well, we're not going to 'ave words about it!' The first speaker yielded; for his wife, the widow of the former proprietor, was the real owner of the circus. 'We needn't say no more about the leopards—for a bit. But I'll tell you what. 'Ee can do tricks with little Mike, the new pony, and the monkeys. We'll make up a sort of little performance a-purpose for 'im and them. I must invent a little somethink that would be taking.'

'I 'ope 'ee won't catch the fever, like the rest on 'em, that's all!' muttered the mistress, shaking her head doubtfully.

That, however, was just what Alick Carnegy managed to do. After some weeks' slaving and knocking about at the hands of the ring-master, such as fairly stunned him, he fell sick. At once the poor, gaunt, dirty lad, whom Northbourne would have refused to recognise as the smart Alick Carnegy, always trig and trim, was hustled off to the squalid room of an old Whitechapel crone who, for the five shillings in the pocket of his torn coat, agreed to nurse him through his trouble. If he had the luck to live through it, the show-folk intended to have him back. If he died—well, there was the parish ready to bury him.

Ned, on the other hand, was by no means in such evil plight. He was still in the division of the show moving from one suburb to another, so he had, at least, fresh air to breathe. True, he had brought on himself one brutal thrashing by running away from the show on the first opportunity. He was easily enough traced to the Docks, where he had sped, hoping against hope to find Alick loitering there. Instead, he was captured by the ring-master himself, who had been informed of the boy's flight, and who thought it quite worth his while to look up such an intelligent, hard-working little chap as Ned. The truth was, Ned had made himself far too useful among the animals to be thus let slip. All this time the dejected lad had been purposely kept in ignorance of the whereabouts of his companion. It was only by pure accident that he at last heard of Alick's collapse and speedy removal from the show—to die, for what anyone cared. One of the showmen had been despatched from the head-quarters of the establishment on an errand, and, knocking up against Ned, exclaimed—

'Hilloa! You ain't got the fever yet, then? Your chum has distanced you; for he's down with it.' Then the man told Ned that Alick was lying 'as ill as ill' in the house of an old crone who once belonged to the show herself.

It was a relief to hear even that much of his companion; it was better than the mystery of silence. But Ned's panic was pretty severe when he thought of Alick's perilous and deserted condition. A rush of mingled feelings came over the Northbourne lad. He felt as the prodigal son must have felt in the far country.

Yes, it was exactly like the Bible story which 'Miss Theedory' seemed to like best. At least, she told it to her class-boys more often than any other, and Ned, listening to her, had grown to realise the unhappy youth's condition in that far-off land where he had 'wasted his substance in riotous living,' and to sympathise cordially with him when he 'came to himself.'

But Ned, hustled, driven, sworn at, from morning to night, could now, in those scanty moments allowed him to swallow his rough food, or before his tired eyes closed in sleep, still more vividly picture the prodigal's desolation and despair.

Then he remembered the outcome of that despair: the unhappy youth in the parable suddenly determined to arise and go to his father, to confess, with bitter remorse, his own mad wrong-doings. Would it not be well for himself to ari............