Great Expectations

The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two

of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled

when we all ran in.

"Here are both men!" panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a

ditch. "Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come

asunder!"

Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and

blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to

help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other

one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but

of course I knew them both directly.

"Mind!" said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged

sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: "I took him! I give him

up to you! Mind that!"

"It's not much to be particular about," said the sergeant; "it'll do you

small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there!"

"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good

than it does now," said my convict, with a greedy laugh. "I took him. He

knows it. That's enough for me."

The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old

bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over.

He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both

separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from

falling.

"Take notice, guard,--he tried to murder me," were his first words.

"Tried to murder him?" said my convict, disdainfully. "Try, and not

do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only

prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,--dragged

him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this

villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder

him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag

him back!"

The other one still gasped, "He tried--he tried-to--murder me.

Bear--bear witness."

"Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant. "Single-handed I got

clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got

clear of these death-cold flats likewise--look at my leg: you won't find

much iron on it--if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let

him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a

tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at

the bottom there," and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his

manacled hands, "I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should

have been safe to find him in my hold."