body? There's them that can't and that won't
have Magwitch—yes, / know the name!—alive
in the same land with them, and that's had
such sure information of him when he was alive
in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't
leave it unbeknown and put them in danger.
P'raps it's them that writes fifty hands, and
that's not like sneaking you as writes but one.
'Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the
gallows!"

He flared the candle at me again, smoking
my face and hair, and for an instant blinding me,
and turned his powerful back as he replaced the
light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and
had been with Joe and Biddy and Herbert,
before he turned towards me again.

There was a clear space of a few feet between
the table and the opposite wall. Within this
space he now slouched backwards and forwards.
His great strength seemed to sit stronger upon
him than ever before, as he did this with his
hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides,
and with his eyes scowling at me. I had no
grain of hope left. Wild as my inward hurry
was, and wonderful the force of the pictures
that rushed by me instead of thoughts, I could
yet clearly understand that unless he had
resolved that I was within a few moments of
surely perishing out of all human knowledge, he
would never have told me what he had told.

Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of
his bottle, and tossed it away. Light as it was,
I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed
slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little,
and now he looked at me no more. The last few
drops of liquor he poured into the palm of
his hand, and licked up. Then with a sudden
hurry of violence and swearing horribly, he threw
the bottle from him, and stooped, and I saw in
his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy
handle.

The resolution I had made did not desert me,
for, without uttering one vain word of appeal to
him, I shouted out with all my might, and
struggled with all my might. It was only my
head and my legs that I could move, but to that
extent I struggled with all the force, until then
unknown, that was within me. In the same
instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures
and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard
voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from
a struggle of men as if it were tumbling water,
clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the
night.

After a blank, I found that I was lying
unbound, on the floor, in the same place, with
my head on some one's knee. My eyes were
fixed on the ladder against the wall, when I
came to myself—had opened on it before my mind
saw it—and thus as I recovered consciousness,
I knew that I was in the place where I had
lost it.

Too indifferent at first, even to look round
and ascertain who supported me, I was lying
looking at the ladder, when there came
between me and it, a face. The face of Trabb's
boy!

"I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in
a sober voice; "but ain't he just pale though!"

At these words, the face of him who supported
me, looked over into mine, and I saw my
supporter to be——

"Herbert! Good Heaven!"

"Softly," said Herbert. "Gently, Handel.
Don't be too eager."

"And our old comrade, Startop," I cried, as
he too bent over me.

"Remember what he is going to assist us in,"
said Herbert, " and be calm."

The allusion made me spring up; though I
dropped again from the pain in my arm. " The
time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What
night is to-night? How long have I been here?"
For, I had a strange and strong misgiving that
I had been lying there a long time—a day and
night—two days and nights—more.

"The time has not gone by. It is still Monday
night."

"Thank God!"

"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to
rest in," said Herbert. " But you can't help
groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have
you got? Can you stand?"

"Yes, yes," said I, " I can walk. I have no
hurt but in this throbbing arm."

They laid it bare, and did what they could. It
was violently swollen and inflamed, and I could
scarcely endure to have it touched. But they
tore up their handkerchiefs to make fresh
bandages, and carefully replaced it in the sling,
until we could get to the town and obtain some
cooling lotion to put upon it. In a little while
we had shut the door of the dark and empty
sluice-house, and were passing through the
quarry on our way back. Trabb's boy—Trabb's
overgrown young man—now went before us with
a lantern, which was the light I had seen come
in at the door. But the moon was a good two
hours higher than when I had last seen the sky,
and the night though rainy was much lighter.
The white vapour of the kiln was passing
from us as we went by, and, as I had thought a
prayer before, I thought a thanksgiving now.

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had
come to my rescue—which at first he had
flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my
remaining quiet—I learnt that I had in my hurry
dropped the letter, open, in our chambers,
where he, coming home to bring with him
Startop whom he had met in the street on
his way to me, found it, very soon after I
was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and
the more so because of the inconsistency
between it and the hasty letter I had left
for him. His uneasiness increasing instead of
subsiding after a quarter of an hour's
consideration, he set off for the coach-office, with
Startop, who volunteered his company, to make
inquiry when the next coach went down. Finding
that the afternoon's coach was gone, and
finding that his uneasiness grew into positive
alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he