Hugh Ritson could support the gossip no longer. He got up to leave the house, but before doing so he pushed open the door that led to the adjoining room, and stood a moment on the threshold, comprehending everything and everybody in one quick glance. The air breathed fresh outside. He walked in the gathering gloom of evening to the ruins of the church by the cliff, and, passing through the lych-gate, he came on the beaten track to the rocks. The rocks lay a hundred feet beneath, torn from the mainland in craggy masses that seemed ready to slide from their base to the deep chasm between. Could it be possible that men who were the slaves of hinds like those in yonder tavern could cling to their little lives while a deliverance like this beetling cliff stood near? A cold smile played on Hugh Ritson's face as he thought that, come what would, such slavery was not for him. The sycamore by the ruined chancel pattered in the breeze, and the wheatear's last notes came from its top-most bough. Far below the waves were rocking lazily. There were other waves at Hugh Ritson's feet--the graves of dead men. Some who were buried there long ago were buried in their chains. Under the earth the fettered men--on the ruins of the church the singing bird. Across the sea the light was every moment fading. In another hour the day would be done, and then the moon would look down peacefully on the fettered and the free. Hugh Ritson returned to the Portland Arms Inn. He found the police-sergeant in conversation with the ruddy-faced gentleman who had wished to explain to him the mysteries of the Reeve staff. "He is the doctor at the prison," whispered the sergeant aside. Presently Hugh turned to the doctor and said: "Do you happen to know the convict B 2001?" "Yes--Drayton," said the doctor; "calls himself Ritson. Are you a friend?" Hugh Ritson's face quivered slightly. "No," he answered, "I am not his friend." Then, after a pause, "But I have an order to see him. Besides, I have just heard him discussed by a company of wardens in a pot-house on the hill." "Who were they? What were they like?" "A tall man, one of them, fifty-five years of age, gray hair, grizzly beard, dark, vindictive eyes, a gash on one cheek, and a voice like a crow's." "Humph! Jim-the-ladder--a discharged soldier." "Another, a cadaverous fellow, with a plausible tongue." "Horrocks--an old second-classer; served his time at Dartmoor and got promotion--doubtful official discipline." "They both deserve one more and much higher promotion," said Hugh Ritson, with emphasis. "You mean this." The doctor laughed, and put the forefinger of one hand, held horizontally, to the tip of the other, held upright. "Can it be possible that the law is unable to maintain a fair stand-up fight with crime, and must needs call a gang of poltroons and blackmailers to its assistance?" "You heard a bad account of B 2001, I judge?"