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.
When he had unravelled it as before, he had: "Why you failed?
Expect--Balloon--Rope".
He was astounded: and could only conclude that O"Hara had not delivered his message.
And as the image of O"Hara had mixed itself with his thoughts of the copse, so now the image of Fred Bates mixed itself with the balloon.
It was partly through _his_ evidence that Bates was here...!
On the third day Bates, as though he had just left off, resumed his story:
"You know Seely"s, the general shop, at Priddlestone", said he; "it was there we always did our Wednesday-night marketin"--n.o.body would believe what high old jinks those Wednesday pay-days was to us Great Eastern blokes! By the time we reached Priddlestone, we had a quart of four-ale down us, let alone what we"d had before, and, as the saying is, one gla.s.s leads to another. By now we was feeling just nicely, thank you, and instead of going to Seely"s, we took a short cut to "The Broom", and it was going on for past eleven when we found ourselves in--you know the beechwood between Priddlestone and Thring--she singing all the time with her head thrown back, at the top of her voice.
"Hogarth, it gives me the creeps to think of! Suddenly it looked as if the whole wood was lit up: there was the sky all cut up with streamers, I saw my Kit quite plain, then all at once there was a whishin" and a rushin" among the trees, like steam--and I saw my Kit drop smack. In two ticks my head was sober: but, as I ran to her, I staggered sideways upon my left hand, and I let such a _yell_ out of me--had put my hand upon something flamin" hot.
"The minute I bent over my old woman I knew she was a deader; and I dropped down, and I called of her, and I shook of her, and it was quite two hours before I come to myself properly, by which time the affair what struck her down was gone out in darkness. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the old gent at Lagden. "This should mean a cool thou", says I to myself. But I knew I should be arrested first thing in the morning, except I told plain out what had happened: and that, you bet, I didn"t mean to do, for if once I mentioned that there piece of iron before I had it safe off the lord-o"-the-manor"s land, I knew it "ud be taken from me. But to take it off before another day or two was out of the question--it was too hot. So says I to myself: "I"ll _get_ convicted; and to-night I"ll write a letter to Bob, telling him where to find the affair, how to get the thou, and _after_ he"s got it, how to set about gettin" the case retried ".
"Well, so said, so done. You know that old elm in the beech-wood? I dug a grave at the foot of it, and managed to kick and roll the affair into the grave, then I took up my Kit, carried her home, and by the time I pegged out the letter to Bob, I saw day breakin". So I made paces for Beccles, knocked up old Harris, and gave him the letter for Bob. By eight o"clock I was arrested--"
At this point the 5.15 recall-bell rang out, and there was falling into line.
The next time that they had speech together, Hogarth said: "And were you such a clown, Fred Bates, as to imperil your life for a paltry thousand pounds?"
"_Paltry_ thousand pounds?" answered Bates, surprised: "Hark at this!
Didn"t I peril my life ten times more in Egypt for a bob a day? I tell you I was certain in my own mind of getting out in a few weeks!"
"Well, what happened to prevent you?"
"Only this: Bob died on the troop-ship coming home; that"s all".
"But you could write old Harris to open your letter to Bob, and act on it, or else hand it over to your father".
"My word, but haven"t I wrote? Old "Arris is either dead and buried, or gorn away, or somethin". I"ve waited a year and nine months--good G.o.d!
and no answer yet".
"Poor Fred! I could weep blood for you. Believe in G.o.d!"
"More Devil than G.o.d about Colmoor, it strikes me".
"As though _you_ knew! Suppose I strike you blind--_now_--with a flash of Him?"
"I don"t take your meaning, sir", said Bates, with a strange heart-bound and sense of awe.
"Do you remember 33 of the quarry-gang, Fred?"