Highway Pirates Part 10

"Ten, and two warders--one inside, and t'other out. There's one they've got inside, a regular highflier--Rodwood his name is. He's sentenced for life, I believe. The only wonder is he's escaped being hung."

"What was his crime?"

"Forgery--at least that's what they've got him for; but they say he's a desperate villain--one as'll stop at nothing when his blood is up, and would think no more of killing a man as came in his way than you or I might of knocking down a rat in a stable. Well, he's off safe enough now for t'other side of the world, and I hope they'll keep him there."

The convicts continued to sing and shout, then grew quieter, apparently tired by their exertions, though every now and again one or more of them burst out afresh in a forced manner, as though bent on making a display of bravado and unconcern. Once or twice, in the pauses of their singing, and amid the clatter of the horses' hoofs and the rumble of the wheels, I remember catching a slight sound, the origin of which it was impossible for even my sharp ears to clearly distinguish, but which I attributed to the swaying and grating of the lamp-iron on which the game had been hung.

On and on we rattled through the darkness. Tom and I exhausted our topics of conversation, and for the time being relapsed into silence.

Guilty as I knew my fellow-pa.s.sengers were of serious crimes, I could not help in a way feeling sorry for them, and contrasting their journey with mine--I myself on the way to the enjoyment of a jolly Christmas holiday with friends at home, and they to banishment from their native land, and to hard servitude beyond the sea.

The cold, too, was intense. I felt it, though warmly clad, and made sure that the poor wretches on the seats behind must be chilled to the bone. Even burly Tom Barker, protected with a driving coat and a big shawl, growled out that "it was a sharp un to-night, and no mistake,"

by which I understood him to imply that it was freezing hard.

At length, at the end of a stage, as we drew up outside an inn very similar to the Sportsman, Tom prepared to dismount from his perch, and invited me to do the same. I preferred, however, to remain where I was, and was watching the stablemen removing the horses, when, to my surprise, I heard a man's voice behind me p.r.o.nounce my name.

"Mr. Eden."

Turning sharply, I found the convict directly behind me leaning forward in his seat. The bright light which shone out through the open door of the inn fell directly on his face, and I was shocked to recognize the rugged features of the man Lewis, in whose boat at Rockymouth, on more than one occasion, Miles and I had gone fishing.

"Excuse me, sir," continued the man. "I knew you as soon as you got up at Round Green. Maybe you've heard from Mr. Miles how I come to this.

A tussle with the preventive men was what done it. I'm no thief."

Had it not been for the sadness of the situation, I could almost have smiled at this fresh proof of the dogged conviction, entertained by this man and his cla.s.s, that defrauding the revenue was no crime.

"I should like to have said good-bye to Mr. Miles," continued Lewis.

"Give him my respects when you see him. I suppose, sir, you haven't got such a thing as a bit of baccy about you?"

Remembering our holiday excursions, and somehow contrasting his present hapless condition with the freedom of the great sea, I could not but pity the unhappy fellow. I shook my head, signifying that I had not.

The next moment Tom Barker emerged from the inn, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. He clambered into his place; there was a "Give 'em their heads, d.i.c.k," and we were off again.

The next stage was not accomplished quite so successfully as the previous part of the journey. After a time one of the wheelers went lame. On examination, it proved to have been badly shod, and at the end of another mile Tom pulled up at a wayside blacksmith's to have the offending nail extracted. Here we had to wait some little time while the smith, who had stopped work for the day, was fetched from his cottage, which was down a dark lane, and not easy to find. It was during this pause in the journey, after the coach had remained stationary for about twenty minutes, that a man thrust his head out of the window and demanded, in loud and peremptory tones, the reason of the delay.

"See here, guard," he cried, "this sort of thing won't do! I'm due aboard one of the king's ships to-morrow!"

The convicts sent up a shout of laughter at this reference to the hulk for which they were bound, and I was soon aware that the speaker was not the warder, as I had at first imagined, but the man Rodwood of whom Tom had spoken. He kept up the joke with a few more sentences of a similar kind, until the gruff command, "Stow that!" from the warder caused him to subside once more into his seat. He spoke like an educated gentleman, and with the air of one accustomed to command.

Indeed, I afterwards learned that he had once held a commission in the army, but owing to gambling debts had been obliged to sell out, whereupon he had entered upon a career of crime, which had terminated in a sentence of transportation for life. At length George Woodley and the smith put in their appearance; the injured horse was attended to, and we were enabled to resume our journey. Bowling along mile after mile in the darkness, it was difficult to judge how time was pa.s.sing; but Tom, glancing at his old, turnip-shaped watch as we left the smithy, muttered,--

"Blessed if it ain't quarter-past eight, and we ain't got to Tod's Corner."

The mention of the crossroads, where at the beginning of the summer holidays we had been met by the gig from Coverthorne, caused my thoughts to fly off to the old house and the fun I had had with Miles, both at the commencement of the previous holidays and during that long friendship which had been brought to such an untimely end. Musing over the events of the holiday naturally led me back to a remembrance of the man with whom I had just been speaking. There he sat, bound for the opposite side of the globe; yet within half an hour we should pa.s.s within three miles of Rockymouth, that native village which he might never behold again. If it had been daylight, we should by this time have caught a glimpse of the sea from the highway along which we were travelling, and the night air seemed flavoured with the salt odour of the ocean.

Though cold and weary, the convicts had once more commenced their song, as though, being debarred the free use of their limbs, they were determined to keep themselves warm with the exercise of their lungs. I had grown by this time so much accustomed to their presence as to hardly notice their shouting; tired out with the day's adventures, only the fear of falling from my lofty perch prevented my dropping off to sleep. Even the sharp tingling of my ears would not have kept me awake. My chin kept falling with a jerk upon my breast, and the clatter of hoofs and the song of the prisoners mingled strangely with momentary fancies that I was back at school, or was talking with the loved ones at home.

At length I was roused up broad awake by the coach stopping. The road was very dark, owing to its being overshadowed by a number of tall trees. I peered about me, and catching sight of a ruined cottage with half of its thatched roof fallen in, I recognized the spot at once, and knew that we were come to within about a mile of Tod's Corner. Just beyond the glare of our lamps was the brow of a steep and dangerous hill, and we had pulled up while George jumped down and put on the drag.

In fancy I can see now the dark figure of Tom Barker beside me, reins in one hand and whip in the other, waiting for the signal to proceed.

The convicts had ceased their singing, and all was quiet except for the impatient sc.r.a.pe of one of the leader's hoofs. I heard the tinkle of the drag as Woodley loosed the chain; then on the roof behind some one gave a short, sharp whistle.

Exactly what happened next I did not fully realize till later. Two men suddenly seized Tom Barker from behind, and a desperate struggle ensued. The silence was broken by an outburst of horrible threats and cursing, while, to make matters worse, the horses, startled by the noise and the fall of the coachman's whip on the backs of the wheelers, sprang forward, and, as though knowing instinctively that something was wrong, gave every sign of commencing to bolt.

I fear I cannot claim for myself any particular presence of mind: it was more the natural impulse of self-preservation which prompted me to act; for once let the horses start to gallop down that hill, and all our necks were as good as broken. Fortunately, although I had never enjoyed the privilege of handling the ribbons on a stage-coach before, I was accustomed to horses. I seized the reins in the nick of time, just as they were slipping over the splashboard, and bracing myself for the effort, succeeded in bringing the team to a standstill.

Even as I did so Tom Barker was flung from his seat, and fell heavily into the road, where he lay like a log, stunned if not dead. Terrified by this violence, I was about to spring down and make good my escape in the darkness, when I felt my arm seized in an iron grip, and a voice, which I recognized as belonging to the man Lewis, spoke in my ear.

"Stay still, sir; you may get hurt if you try to run. I'll see you come to no harm."

CHAPTER X.

HIGHWAY PIRATES.

It did not take me long to arrive at an understanding of the true state of affairs. The convicts had risen, overpowered their guards, and seized the coach. From sc.r.a.ps of conversation which pa.s.sed between them, I subsequently learned that the man whom I had seen appear and disappear so mysteriously outside the Sportsman Inn was a friend of one of the prisoners, and, under the pretence of wishing him good-bye, had handed up a couple of small files, with which several of the men had freed themselves from their fetters. Once or twice I had heard a slight grating noise, but, as I have already said, I had attributed the sound to the swaying of the lamp.

By some method of communication such as criminals seem always able to establish, the three convicts inside had been informed of what was about to take place, so that at the same moment the outbreak took place on the roof they flung themselves on the warder who rode with them, and succeeded in holding him down and wresting from him the pistol with which he was armed.

To a certain extent stupefied by the shock of this sudden surprise, I had but a confused notion of what took place during the next ten minutes. Together with George Woodley, who had also been seized, I was thrust to the side of the road, while a man told off to keep watch over us ordered us gruffly to sit down facing the hedge with our feet in the ditch, as a greater precaution against our making any sudden attempt to bolt.

In this position we could only judge by the sounds and conversation going on behind us what was actually taking place.

"Better keep still, Master Eden," whispered George. "We'd be safer in a cage of wild beasts than among these men at this moment."

Obtaining the keys of the handcuffs from the pockets of their guards, those men who had not already freed themselves from their fetters were speedily liberated; the warders were now gagged, chained, and, as a further precaution, bound with the broad straps used for securing luggage on the coach roof. Not till this had been done was any heed paid to poor Tom Barker, who lay in the road exactly where he had fallen.

"Is he dead?" I heard a voice inquire callously.

"Can't say," was the gruff reply. "There's blood from his head on the stones. Hand down that lamp, and let's have a look. He's breathing,"

continued the speaker after a pause. "I should say he'll come round again before long."

At that moment a man, whom I recognized at once as Rodwood, bade every one be silent and listen to what he had to say. The hum of voices ceased, and the men gathered round the speaker, who raised himself by standing on one of the steps of the vehicle.

"Whatever happens now, there's no turning back," he began; "and what's to be done must be done quickly. The mail to Welmington will pa.s.s before long; and what's more, they'll be expecting us at the end of this stage, so after a while they'll send a man back to find out what's happened. For the present we're all in the same boat, and we'd better all pull together. The thing will be to choose a leader. Now, who'll you have?"

"Yourself," cried a voice, and to this there was a unanimous murmur of approbation.

"Very well," exclaimed the newly-appointed captain, jumping down into the centre of his gang. "Then the first thing is to get these two 'screws' out of the road. They'd have shot us if they could have got at their barkers, and I propose to serve 'em the same way. It's the safest plan. Hand me the pistols!"

The awful coolness with which the man made this terrible proposal thrilled me with horror. Left to himself, the fellow would, I feel sure, have carried out his abominable intention; but his comrades, hardened and reckless offenders as some of them were, could not be persuaded to follow him to such extremes of crime.

"No, no, Rodwood," cried one and another; "there's no need to risk being scragged. Hoist them inside this empty cottage; that'll give us a fair start before they're likely to be found. Put the coachman in there too, and tie his legs; he won't find voice enough to shout for help for some time yet, even if any one chanced to hear him."

The warders and poor Tom were accordingly half lifted, half dragged inside the ruined cottage, and the men came back to decide what was to be done next.

"Where are we going?" asked several voices.

"Well, we must clear out from here," answered Rodwood. "The whole countryside will be raised up against us before morning. We've got a coach and horses at our disposal, so why not go off in that? I'll drive, if no other man wants to handle the ribbons."