Lenoir had a very limited stock of patience, and he soon came to the end of it.
He ran to the leading horse and pulled it up sharply.
The waggoner swore and lashed up.
But Lenoir, turning his attention next to the shaft horse, pulled the waggon up to a standstill.
And the waggoner, furious at this, lashed Lenoir.
The whip caught him round the head and shoulders, curling about so that the man could not get it free.
Lenoir caught at the thong, and with a sudden jerk, brought the waggoner down from his seat.
Now began as pretty a little skirmish as you could wish to see.
The waggoner fell an easy prey to the furious coiner at first.
He was half-dazed with being jerked down to the ground.
But he soon recovered himself.
Then he set to punching at Lenoir with all his strength.
Then they grappled fiercely with each other.
A desperate struggle for supremacy ensued.
At length Lenoir"s superior strength and science prevailed, tough as the waggoner was.
The latter lay under the coiner, whose knee pressed cruelly upon his chest.
"Now ask my pardon," said Lenoir.
"Never!" roared the defeated waggoner, stoutly.
"I shall kill you if you don"t," said Lenoir, threateningly.
"Mind you don"t get finished off first," said the waggoner significantly.
As he spoke, he was looking up over his conqueror"s shoulder.
Lenoir perceived this, but thought it only a _ruse_ to get him to shift his hold.
So, with a contemptuous smile, he raised his clenched fist to deal the luckless waggoner a blow that was to knock every sc.r.a.p of sense out of his unfortunate cranium.
"Take that!"
But before the waggoner could get it, Lenoir received something himself that sent him to earth with a hollow groan--felled like a bullock beneath the butcher"s pole-axe.
Somebody had after all been concealed in the waggon.
That somebody was Herbert Murray himself.
The English youth had heard the scuffle, and seeing his opportunity, he slid out of his place of concealment and joined in the fight at the very right moment.
The waggoner shook himself together.
"That was neatly done, _camarade_," he said.
"I was just in time," said Murray; "look after him. He is wanted by the police; a desperate customer. They are after him now."
"He"s very quiet," said the waggoner, with a curious glance.
"He"s not dead," returned Murray; "he has his destiny to fulfil yet."
"What may that be?"
"The galleys," was the reply.
The waggoner stared hard at young Murray.
"I don"t like the look of you much more than that of the beast lying there," he thought to himself; "mind you don"t keep him company in the galleys."
An odd fancy to cross a stranger"s mind.
Was it prophetic?
CHAPTER XCV.
PLANS FOR OUR FRIENDS" RELEASE--MURRAY"S COUNTER-PLOT--THE LETTER, AND HOW IT WAS INTERCEPTED--HERBERT MURRAY TRIUMPHS--CHIVEY WORKS THE ARTFUL DODGE.
"Well," exclaimed the unfortunate Mole, "this is a nice go!"
"I"m glad you think it nice," said young Jack, bitterly.
As they spoke, they were being led through the streets of Ma.r.s.eilles, handcuffed and two abreast, with a brace of gendarmes between each couple.
The people flocked out to stare at the "notorious gang of forgers, which"--so rang the report--"had just been captured by the police, after making a desperate resistance."
The first impulse of Jack Harkaway himself had been naturally to resist his captors.
But he was speedily shown the uselessness of such a course.