Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
598 UHARLES. DIOKENS’ rl'VORZ(15'. V
dash and I done it. I could ha’ got clear of these death-
cold flats likewise-look at my leg : you won’t find much
iron on it-if I hadn’t made discovery that he was here.
Letlzim go free? Let Mm. profit by the means as I found
out? Let Izim make a tool of me afresh ‘and again? Once
more? No, no,‘ no. If Ihad died at the bottom there ; ’?
and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch -with his
manacled hands ; “ I'd have held to him with that‘ grip,
that you should have been safe to find him in my hold.”
. The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme hor-
ror of his companion; repeated, “ He tried to murder me.
I should ' have been‘ a dead man if you had not come
up n , i l , -, ' ' I
‘.‘ He lies l” said my convict, with fierce energy. ‘‘'He’s
a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face ; ain't
it written there? Let‘him turn those eyes of his on me.
I defyhim to do it.” ' ‘ ‘ g
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile-which
could not, however, collect the nervous working of his
mouthinto any set expression, looked at the soldiers, and
looked about at the marshes and the sky, but certainly
did not look at the speaker. .
' “Do you'see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you
see what a villain he is? Do you see those grovelling
and wandering eyes? That’s how he looked when we
were tried together. He never looked at me.’’- .
The other, always working and working his dry lips
and turning his eyes restlessly about him for and near,
did at last turn them for a moment on thelspeaker, with
the words, “ You are not much to look at,” and with a
half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point,
my convict became so frantically exasperated, that he
would have rushed upon him but for the interposition of
the soldiers. “ Didn’tI tell you," said the other convict
then, "'that he would murder me if he could?” And
any one could see that he shook with fear, and that
there broke out upon his lips, curious white flakes, like
thin snow. ‘ , r v '
- “Enough of this parley," said the sergeant. “ Light
those torches.” ; . , ,
4 As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of
a gun, went down on his knees to open it,‘ my convict
looked around him for the first time, and saw me. I had
alighted from Joe's back oi) the brink of the ditch when
we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him
eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my
hands and shook my head. ‘I had been waitinrr for him
to see me, that I might try to assure him of my ihnocence
It was not at all expressed to me that he even compre:
hended my intention, for he gave me a. look that I did
not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if
he had looked at me for an hour or for a day I could not,
have remembered his-face ever aftersvards as havin
been more attentive. ’ - , g
The soldier with the basket soon t ‘ -
lighted three or four torches, and tool:g(dneal1i]rhg's1;l’t‘
distributed the others.‘ It had been almost dark befln-e
but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards vc ’
dark. Before we departed from that spot, four 501,313.31;-3:
standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presentla
we saw other torches kindled at some distance 15911-ml],
us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of the
river. “ All right,” said the serrreant. “March.”
iVe had not one far when three cannon were fired
aheadof us wit a‘soun'd that seemed to burst somethinnv
inside my ear. “ Youare expected on board," said (113
sergeautto my convict ; “they know you are coming
n’t struggle, my man. Close up here.” . '
V The two were kept apart,and each walked surrounded by
a separate guard. I had held of Joe’shand now, and Joe
carrierl one of 'the torches.‘ Mr. VVopsle had been for
going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we
went on with the party.’ ’ There was a reasonably good-
path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a diver.
gence here and there where a dykecame, with a minia.
ture windmill on it and’ a muddy sluice-gate. “fhen I
looked round, I could see the other lights coming in
after us. The torches we carried, dropped great blotches
of fire upon the track, and I could ‘see those, too, lvin
smoking and flaring. ‘I could see nothing else but black
darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their
pitchy blaze, and thctwo prisoners seemed rather to like
that, as they limped along in the midst of ‘ the muskets.
iVe could not go fast, because of their lameness; .and
they were so spent,’ that two or three timeswe 11110. to
halt while they rested.’ ., - " =
’ After an hour or soiof this travelling, we came to a
rough wooden hut and alanding-place. There was a
guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant
answered. Then, we went into the hut where there was
a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and
a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and .a low
wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without
the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen soldiers
all at once .Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in
their great-coats, were not much interested in us, but
just lifted their heads ‘and took a sleepy stare, and then
lay down again. The sergeant made some kind of re-
port, and some entry in a book, and then the convict
whom I call the other convict was drafted off with his
guard, to go on board first. ,
My convict never looked at me, except that once.
VVhile we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire look-
ing thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by turns
upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if he
pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he
turned to the sergeant, and remarked : v ' ‘
"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It
may’prevent some persons laying under suspicion alonger
me.’ ‘
‘ “You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant,
standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded,
“ but you have no call to say it here. You’ll have op-
portunity enough to say about it and hear about it,rbe-
fore it's done with, you know.” , iv ' . -
“,1 know, but this is another pint. a separate matter.
A man,can’t starve ; at least I can’t. I took some wit-
tles, up at the willage over yonder-where the church
stands a’most out on the marshes.” ' n . . . i
“ You mean stole,” said the sergeant. A v .
- “ xgml l’ll tell you where from. Fromv the black-
smit’s.” ‘ t ," . -u > ‘I
V “ Ilalloa !" said the sergeant, staring at Joe.
“ Halloa, Pip I” said Joe, staring at me.
“ It was some broken wittles-that’s what it was-and
a dram of liquor, and a pie.” i >
“Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie,
blacksmith?” asked the sergeant, confidentially.
“ My wife did, at the very moment when you came in.
Don’t you know, Pip?” 4 ’ . . t ‘
r“So,” said my convict," turning his eyes on Joe-in a
moody manner, and without the least glance at me ; ‘.‘ so
yon’re the blacksmith, are you? Then I’m sorry to say,
I've eat your pic.” ‘ ’ - , v ... V
a “God knows you’re welcome to it-so far as it was
ever mine,” returned Joe, with a saving remembrance of
Mrs. J oe.‘ “ ‘V6 don’t know what you have done, but we
wouldn’t have you starved to death for it, poor miserable
f8ll0iV-CYCZltUF.'-‘VOllld us, Pip?” '; .
The something that I had noticed before, clickedv in
the man’s throat again, and he turned his back. < The
boat had returned, and his guard were ready,“ so we fol-
lowed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes
and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was
rowed bya crew of convicts like himself. No one seemed
surprised to see him, or interested in seeing him, or glad
to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke, a word, except
that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, “ Give
way, you I” which was the signal for the dip of the ears.
By the li -ht of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying‘
out a litt e way from the mud of the shore,‘like a wicked
Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive
rusty chains,’ the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to
be ironed like the prisoners- lVe saw the boat go along-
side. and we saw him taken up the side, and disappear-
Then, the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the
water, and went out, as if it were all over with him.
. I
CHAPTER . VI.
MY state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I
-had been so unexpectedly exoneratedhdid not impel H10