Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its breadth, the little social “system” which has produced Colmoor. But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought, while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the blockade of two pickets of the civil guard. The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished. So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush. Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings, caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle. Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The rest escaped. XVI THE ROPE Soon after this Hogarth was taken with vomitings, his heart retching at Colmoor. His dark cheeks jaundiced; those mobile nostrils of his small bony nose yawned, like an exhausted horse's; his face was all a light of eyes. Whether or not some suspicion of his complicity with O'Hara had occurred to the authorities, he now found himself transferred to another “graft”: from quarrying was set to trenching. Four things are inexhaustible in the earth: the hope of a gambler; the sea; the lip of a lover; and the capacity of Colmoor to be trenched and quarried. And in Hogarth's new gang was--Fred Bates. One day, Hogarth, intent upon his work, heard a sob and, glancing, saw that Bates had dropped his spade and buried his face in his hands. “What, Fred, not giving in?” He went quickly and pressed his palm on Bates' brow, saying: “Patience! Stiffen your back: look how _I_ slip into it!” “Ah, Hogarth, you don't know. I am an innocent man”. “So am I.” “Yes, but _I_ was certain in my own mind to be out within anyway, six months; _you_ wasn't. That makes a difference, don't it? That touches the nerve, don't it? Ah!” “And how did you expect to be out?” “I had a brother-Bob-in the 9th Lancers in Punjab and his regiment was ordered home just a week before I was arrested. Well, the morning after the missus was killed, I went early--for I knew I'd soon be arrested--to a stableman at Beccles--you know old Harris--and I made him swear to give a letter to Bob the moment Bob put foot in Southampton, and to nobody else. In the letter I told Bob where he was to look for so-and-so, and how he was to prove my innocence--”