Then the wind blew the flame so that the face of Mark was illumined. Suddenly Tiger Ki snatched his hand back again. 'A Runham—no!' He endeavoured by a frantic effort to ascend the bank by his own efforts. There ensued a terrible scene—the struggle of a well-nigh spent man with the adverse elements to deliver himself from his position. He fought with the water and the clay, tossing a spray about him, pounding with his feet, one shod, the other bare, churning clay and water around him. Failing to mount one step above where the flail was rooted, he discontinued his profitless effort, and, clinging with both hands to the stay, cried— 'Zita, I will owe life to you, or to none!' Without a thought for herself, the girl leaped to his aid. In a moment his disengaged arm was round her. 'We may die—if we cannot live—together.' 'Let go!' shouted Mark, and laid hold of Zita by the arm. 'Let go!' 'To you—never!' Without consideration Mark drove the burning torch against his hand that clasped the girl. With a shriek Drownlands relaxed his hold. At that moment, Ephraim, who had descended carefully, had laid hold of the flail above where Drownlands' hand had clutched it. He stooped, and, exerting his full force from above, drew it forth from the clay in which it was fast. At once Drownlands slid away in the stream. Still clinging to the flail, he was carried off his feet, out of the range of light cast by the torch, and under water. 'Go!' said Beamish, waving his hand over the torrent. 'Go! thou accuser of thy brethren! Go, wash away thy sins in the water that drowns thee!' He saw the flood before him glittering like gold. He looked round. The gangers had come—summoned by Kainie. 'Save him! save him!' cried Zita. 'Where is he?—who can say? Carried forth into the outer darkness; rolled away in the baptismal flood—who can say whither?' answered Ephraim. 'No,' said one of the gangers. 'No help is possible.' 'God have mercy on a sinful soul!' said Ephraim. CHAPTER XL THISTLES The trial of the rioters came on before a Special Commission, that sat a few weeks after the arrest of the men. The cutting of the embankment after the arrest had greatly exasperated minds against the unfortunate men who were to take their trial, although they themselves were guiltless in this matter. It probably served to sharpen the sentences pronounced upon them, as their judges shared the general feeling that an example should be made that would overawe the fen-men, and deter them from future acts of lawlessness. Judgment of death was passed on thirty-four men, but only five were actually executed. The sentence on nine was mitigated into transportation for life, and that on the rest was commuted to imprisonment for a term of years.