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: "I 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 the discovery that he was here. Let
him go free? Let him profit by the means as 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."