Part 19 (2/2)

They were dizzily aware of shouted orders, the creaking of the toiling, slipping ropes, little jolts and stoppages, two hundred eyes blinking up, not seeing their cringed-up limbs--unnecessary cautious: for the nearer they descended to-ward the half-light, the surer did the area of the lorry make their invisibility. At last they were near; the bell lingered, swinging; babel was around them; the Governor's voice; a cheer: the bell was on the lorry.

Someone struck the bell with a hammer, there was talk, swarmings round it, then shoulders pushed at the lorry wheels, which squealed and moved amid a still fussier babel drawn by four horses, and seven yoke of cattle. The fugitives could hear the opening of the great gate, the laborious exit, and, in a moment's pause, again the Governor talking, it seemed far off, to the expert....

Wearily creaked the cart--beyond the moor--to a country road.

Now chattering words came from Harris: ”All d.a.m.ned fine! I don't deny that you know your way about--”

”Way out”, said Hogarth.

”Yes, a gamesome sort of c.o.c.k you are in all weathers...but what next?”

”'Next' is to fall upon your knees and wors.h.i.+p me, you cur”.

”Thou shalt wors.h.i.+p the Lawd thy Gawd”, chattered Harris; ”no bloomin'

fear! This is only a new kind of punishment cell. You've got me in; 'ow are you going to get me out?”

Hogarth believed that the lorry was _en route_ for the railway, and hoped to escape in the transfer of the bell; but that night lorry and bell slept in a shed outside a village _en route_ for the sea.

At four A.M. they were again _en route_, and at intervals during the day, opening their now feeble and sleep-infected eyes, could hear the hoots of the two cattlemen, the sound of winds, the rowdy gait of the crooked-legged oxen, and stoppages for drink or rest, and anon an obstruction, with shouting and fuss. It was night before the waggon came to rest on a jetty, the elaborate day's journey done.

The fugitives were then deep in sleep, and only awoke at the rattle of a steam-crane in action above them, to find the bell beginning to tilt, lift and swing; then they were on a deck; and soon afterwards knew that it was a steamer's, when they heard the bray of her whistle, and presently were aware of blaring winds, and billows of the sea.

Harris was for then and there crying out, but Hogarth, now his master, said: ”To-morrow morning”; and they fell again into their morbid slumber.

When they again awoke, uproar surrounded them, voices, a heaven-high shouting of quenched fires and screaming steams; moreover, the bell was leaning steeply, they two huddled together at its edge.

Harris began to bellow: but he was not heard, or not heeded.... There had been a collision.

”If you can't swim, better catch hold of me”, Hogarth shouted--”there will be--”

But the earth turned turtle, and Hogarth felt himself struck on the shoulder, flung, and dragged down, down, into darkness.

After an upward climb and fight to slip the clutch of the s.h.i.+p's suction, in the middle of a heavy sea he managed to get off his clothes, and set to swimming, whither he did not know, a toy on mountains of water.

Exultation raged in him--a crazy intoxication--at liberation attained, at the sensation of warmth, at all that water and waste of Nature.

But within ten minutes it is finished: he s.h.i.+vers, his false strength changing to paltriness, the waves was.h.i.+ng now over his head; and now he is drowsing...drowning...

XXII

OLD TOM

He continued, however, to swim after his conscious efforts ceased: for his body was found next morning on a strip of Cornish sand between Gorran and Mevagissey, washed by every sheet of surf.

His rescuer, a shrimp-fisher, occupied one of three cots perched on a ravine; and there on the evening of the second day he opened his eyes on a settee, four children screaming in play around him; he so far having been seen only by a reporter from Mevagissey, and the doctor from Gorran, who, on his wide rounds, had been asked into the cottage.

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