That night Hugh Ritson lodged at the doctor's quarters. He did not lie, but, as on the night before, he walked the long hours through, steadfastly resisting every temptation to sleep. At five in the morning he heard the great bell at the gate ring for two minutes, and, shortly afterward, the tramp, tramp, tramp of many feet under his window. The convicts, to the number of fifteen hundred, were drawn up on the parade-ground. They looked chill in the cold light of early morning; their gray jackets lay loose on their spare shoulders; their hands hung inertly at their sides, and they walked with the oscillating motion of men whose feet were sore in their heavy boots. The civil guard was drawn up, the chief warder whistled, and then the men fell out into gangs of twenty-five each, attended by an assistant warder. "Rear rank, take two paces to the right--march." Then the tramp, tramp again. As the outside gangs passed through the gate, each officer in charge received his rifle, bayonet, belt, and cartridge-box from the armorer at the lodge. The stone-dressing gang passed close under the window, and Hugh Ritson reeled back as one of the men--a stalwart fellow in a blue cap, who was walking abreast of a misshapen creature with a face full of ferocity--lifted his eyes upward from the file. At eight o'clock the governor appeared at his receiving-office. He was a slight man with the face and figure of a greyhound. His military frock-coat was embossed with Crimean medals, and he was redolent of the odor of Whitehall. He received Hugh Ritson's papers with a curious mixture of easy courtesy and cold dignity--a sort of combination of the different manners in which he was wont to bow to a secretary of state and condemn a convict to the chain and bread and water. "The men are back to breakfast at nine," he said. "Watkins," to the chief warder, "have B 2001 brought round to the office immediately 34 gang returns." Hugh Ritson had left the receiving-office and was crossing the parade-ground when a loud hubbub arose near the lodge. "The boat!" shouted twenty voices, and a covey of convicts ran in the direction of a shed where an eight-oar boat was kept on the chocks. "A man has mizzled--run a wagon into the sea and is drifting down the race." How the demons laughed, how they cursed in jest, how they worked, how luminous were their eyes and haggard faces at the prospect of recapturing one of their fellow-prisoners who had tried to make his escape! Every convict who helped to catch a fugitive was entitled to a remission of six days. The doctor took Hugh Ritson up on to the lead flat that covered his quarters. From that altitude they could see over the prison wall to the rocky coast beyond. Near the ruins of the old church a gang of convicts were running to and fro, waving their hands, and shouting in wild excitement. "It's gang 34," said the doctor, "Jim-the-ladder's gang."