Part 13 (1/2)

33 was off.

Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its breadth, the little social ”system” which has produced Colmoor.

But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the blockade of two pickets of the civil guard.

The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished.

So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush.

Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle.

Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped.

XVI

THE ROPE

Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of eyes.

Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another ”graft”: from quarrying was set to trenching.

Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and quarried.

And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates.

One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands.

”What, Fred, not giving in?” He went quickly and pressed his palm on Bates' brow, saying: ”Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip into it!”

”Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man”.

”So am I.”

”Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!”

”And how did you expect to be out?”

”I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--to a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and to n.o.body else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--”

”But I don't understand a word of what you are saying”, interrupted Hogarth.

”I'll tell you. I did not kill my Kit. The burn on her face, and on my hand, wasn't any red-hot poker. Did you ever hear such bosh? Look here, you mind, don't you, the talk that week about the world getting blowed up by some comet? Well, about 3 P.M. on the comet day, as I was walking home through Lagden Dip, an old gent, the same as took the farm over after you, he comes up to me, and he says: 'If you should happen to see anywhere in your travels', sez 'e, laughin' and rubbin' his hands, 'a piece of hot iron after eleven to-night, you bring it to me, and I'll put a cheque for One Thousand Pounds there in the middle of your palm'.

Well--I said it was a Wednesday, didn't I? And Wednesday bein' the pay-day on the Eastern, me and the missus had a drop o' beer that afternoon, and you know 'ow you come and catched me a-paying of her--dirty dog that I was those days. But, Hogarth, you hadn't hardly gone when we made it up between us, and the rest of that evening we was just like--well--two bloomin', cooin' doves! kissin', blubblin', havin'

drinks, and doin' our week's shoppin' together. Well--stop, here's Black--”

They were interrupted, and for two days found no other chance.

Two days during which Hogarth received another letter from Loveday, of which one paragraph was as follows: ”The fifteen pounds which you left in Lloyd's Bank I have managed to withdraw for you on the authority of your aunt, Miss Sarah Hogarth”, and at once he scented a cypher, having no fifteen pounds, and no aunt.