Still the Englishman struggled and writhed upon the ground, while the hard breathing of the two sailors testified that it was no mean resistance. Suddenly the one-armed man loosened the scarf, but before Christian could recover his breath a handkerchief was pressed over his lips, and a sweet, pungent odour filled his nostrils. “Three to one,” he gasped, and quite suddenly his head fell forward, while his clutch relaxed. “He is a brave man,” said the dripping leader of the attack, as he stood upright and touched his damaged shoulder gently and tentatively. “Now quick to the carriage with him. You have not managed this well, my friends, not at all well.” The speaker raised his cold hand to his forehead, which was wet, less perhaps from past exertion than from the agony he was enduring. “But, monsieur,” grumbled one of the sailors in humble self-defence, “he is made of steel!” * * * * * The pale light of a grey dawn was stealing slowly up into the riven sky, lighting up the clouds which were flying eastward on the shoulder of a boisterous wind. The heavy grey sea, heaving, surging, and hissing, threw itself upwards into broken spray, which flew to leeward at a sharp angle, blown from the summit of the wave like froth from an over-filled tankard. After a night of squally restlessness, accompanied by a driving rain that tasted brackish, things had settled down with the dawn into a steady, roaring gale of wind. In the growing light sea-gulls rose triumphantly with smooth breasts bravely facing the wind.