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! Great 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 a 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.