"We've got but minutes," answered the other; "an' 'tis a fool's trick to die if you can live. Dead, you're no good to none but worms and body-snatchers; alive, you can't tell what might come along. You've got to get out of this coil without Norcot's help; then she's free again. 'Twas only if he freed you--not if you freed yourself." "'Tis beyond human power." "'Tis as easy as eating. D'you see that cart full of muck? Behind the tail-board there's a place scraped out big enough to hold you. An' there's a knot-hole in the bottom of the cart where you can put your mouth so you won't be choked. 'Twill be a thought foul, but better'n a rope. Here's a file for them bracelets presently. Wait a moment and watch." Putt went across to the cart and opened the tail-board, behind which a space had been scooped in the farmyard stuff. Then he took a bundle of the dirty straw, rolled it into a ball, and returned to John Lee. "'Tis a matter of moments now," he said. "Yonder chap, pretending to be asleep under the trees, only waits for you to slip in the cart; then he'll cover you up deep and set off through Dean Wood." While he spoke Tom rolled his ball of straw into the shape of a head and stuck it upon his stick. Next he watched his uncle through the grass, and when Bradridge had turned away for a moment to speak to a soldier, John Lee's hat was thrust upon the dummy, while John himself slipped down the bank. Tom Putt's uncle, from his standpoint, still supposed that he saw the condemned man's head, and his nephew talking earnestly beside the prisoner; but in reality John was already under a mass of hot ordure behind the tail-board of the cart; and a moment later the vehicle took its lumbering way among the soldiers. It crept through the little camp, then ascended a hill upon the driver's left hand, and slowly disappeared from view in the direction of Dean Wood. Meantime Putt sat by John Lee's hat on the stick and watched his uncle. The precious minutes passed until at last Sergeant Bradridge looked at his watch again, rose, and knocked the burning tobacco from his pipe. Thereupon Thomas played his part. He removed Lee's hat and flung it into the river, where it floated fast down stream; he then struck himself a formidable blow on the side of the face with his stick, and shouting with all his might, himself leapt down into the water. It took him to his middle, and he waded deeper. "Help, help, Uncle Sep! Help, sojers! Help; you'll never hang him, for he'll drown hisself, sure as death!" A dozen redcoats answered Tom's bawling, and Sergeant Bradridge also ran to the spot as fast as he was able. "He's done for me--I shall die!" cried Putt, holding his face; "I know'd how 'twould be. He leapt up like lightning, and then struck me with his handcuffed hands. I'll swear my jaw's broke. 'Death by water's better'n hanging!' he says, an' flings hisself into the river!" "There's his hat," said a soldier; "but his head isn't under it."