of pursuit . I got a dreadful start, when I thought
I  heard the file still going; but it was only a
sheep bell. The sheep stopped in their eating
and looked timidly at us; and the cattle, their
heads tumed from the wind and sleet, stared
angrily as if they held us responsible for both
annoyances; but, except these things, and the
shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass,
there was no break in the bleak stillness of
the marshes.

The soldiers were moving on in the direction
of the old Battery, and we were moving on a little
way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all
stopped. For, there had reached us on the
wings of the wind and rain, a long shout. It was
repeated. It was at a distance towards the east,
but it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to
be two or more shouts raised together—if one
might judge from a confusion in the sound.

To this effect the sergeant and the nearest
men were speaking under their breath, when
Joe and I came up. After another moment's
listening, Joe (who was a good judge) agreed,
and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) agreed.
The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the
sound should not be answered, but that the
course should be changed, and that his men
should make towards it " at the double." So
we slanted to the right (where the East was),
and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I
had to hold on tight to keep my seat.

It was a run indeed now, and what Joe
called, in the only two words lie spoke all the
time, "a Winder." Down banks and up banks,
and over gates, and splashing into dykes, and
breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared
where he went. As we came nearer to the
shouting, it became more and more apparent
that it was made by more than one voice.
Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and
then the soldiers stopped. When it broke out
again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate
than ever, and we after them. After a while, we
had so run it down, that we could hear one voice
calling " Murder!" and another voice, " Convicts!Runaways! Guard! This way for the
runaway convicts!" Then both voices would
seem to be stifled in a struggle, and then would
break out again. And when it had come to
this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.

The sergeant ran in first, when we had run
the noise quite down, and two of his men ran in
close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and
levelled when we all ran in.

"Here are both men!" panted the sergeant,
struggling at the bottom of a ditch. " Surrender,
you two! and confound you for two wild beasts!
Come asunder!"

Water was splashing, and mud was flying,
and oaths were being sworn, and blows were
being struck, when some more men went
down into the ditch to help the sergeant, and
dragged out, separately, my convict and the
other one. Both were bleeding and panting
and execrating and struggling; but of course I
knew them both directly.

"Mind!" said my convict, wiping blood
from his face with his ragged sleeves, and
shaking torn hair from his fingers; "/ took
him! I give him up to you! Mind that!"

"It's not much to be particular about,"
said the sergeant; '' it'll do you small good,
my man, being in the same plight yourself.
Handcuffs there!"

"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't
want it to do me more good than it does now,"
said my convict, with a greedy laugh. " I took
him. He knows it. That's enough for me."

The other convict was livid to look at, and,
in addition to the old bruised left side of
his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over.
He could not so much as get his breath to
speak, until they were both separately handcuffed,
but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself
from falling.

"Take notice, guard—he tried to murder
me," were his first words.

"Tried to murder him?" said my convict,
disdainfully. " Try, and not do it? I took him,
and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not
only prevented him getting off the marshes, but
I dragged him here—dragged him this far on
his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please,
this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman
again, through me. Murder him? Worth
my while, too, to murder him, when I could do
worse and drag him back!"

The other one still gasped, " He tried—he
tried—to—murder me. Bear—bear witness."

"Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant.
" Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship;
I made a 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.
Let him go free? Let him profit by the means I
found out? Let him make a tool of me afresh and
again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had 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 ex-
treme horror of his companion, repeated, " He
tried to murder me. I should have been a dead
man if you had not come up."

"He lies !" 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 defy him to do it."

The other, with an effort at a scornful smile—
which could not, however, collect the nervous
working of his mouth into any set expression—
looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the
marshes and at 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 far and near, did at lastt turn them for a