IT was a clear night and soft, with a great golden moon high above the lightship at the sand head, and never a cat's-paw of wind to fleck the green sea-field of the Channel. It was a clear night, with the heavens unclouded, and the wheat-land all glowing with the wealth of light, and the village hushed in sleep, so that no sound but the church-bell chime told of men resting there, of a day's work done, and a day's work to come when the night hours had rung out. I was alone on the cliffs above the dreamy hamlet, and afield or at sea I had no company — not a sail that was flapping, not a breath from a steamer's funnel, not a dog to bark, or a late traveller to wish me "God-speed."

       How long I sat on the cliff, knowing not danger in the dark, I may not tell. Many a pipe I knocked out against the cube of white stone which the convicts had cut, many a match I struck and hurled flaming to the depths below. It was something to do to watch the falling and quickly dying light as though the light of a life had been hurled from the cliff's edge and had gone to the doom below. It was pleasant to be all alone there with that field of sea, and that silent row of fishers' cottages, and those other thoughts which came every time I looked westward to the grim outline of the convicts' prison, where slept a hundred living men upon whom death had already laid a hand. Of what were their dreams, if sleeping, or their other dreams, if waking? Of reproach, perchance, of home, of children, even perhaps of "jobs" to be done when they were released. The convict is not all sentiment, though the romancer makes him so; he is often a black scoundrel without one better impulse, but in such a mood he is not generally made much of by book folk.

       When I had sat upon the cliff for the passing hour, a sudden impulse led me to think of my boat, down on the sand cove there. What a night for an hour's row! And a row in freedom, without one single thought of the boatman fiend, who, being unable to row properly himself, desires to row other people. Besides, there was no wind, no sea, no current worth thinking about. It was a great thought, and as it came to me I started to my feet and descended the steep-cut path to the beach. Of course, to row was the right thing on such a night; and when I came back the supper would find the better palate.

       It was a great work to get the old tub down to the water, for she seemed unusually heavy on that night of mine; but the prize was great, and I persevered, the perspiration rolling off me, and the sand flying before my attempts to get foothold. When I got her into the water at last, I had barked my knees, and my silk vest was torn. But what odds? There were other silk vests, and knees are not of much account when you are afloat, and there is a glorious moon streaming full upon you, and you put your hands in the water to feel the sea warm as the breath of summer itself. I laughed at the mishap, and put the old sculls into the rowlocks, singing an old boating song and getting my shoulders on to it. But how heavy she was, that old friend I had loved so well; no ramshackle dinghy or smack-gig was ever worse on hand. And I reproached her, saying that it was mean of her to play me false and hang back like a pig on a high road. But, she went no faster, so that I lay upon my sculls and looked at her, and her aspect puzzled me ; she was all down in the stern like a canoe-toy, and the tarpaulin sheet aft was bunched up as though there was a bundle in it. I left my seat to pull the black sheet straight when I noticed that it moved, and as I drew back a head rose above it. The head was followed by a body, and then by the whole man. One glance told the story. I had a convict for a passenger, and he had come uninvited.

       We two, so curious and so different, sat looking at each other, as two cats that sit upon a wall and are afraid. Not that fear was my prevailing impulse, for I had not then considered the matter. I looked rather at the man before me — a wizened old man in convict garb — and wondered how he had got into my boat. He in his turn scanned me, as though to ask, Friend or foe? But he was prepared for either answer, since he slowly drew his left hand from the black sheet which was wound about it, and showed me that he held a long knife in it. I looked at the knife and then at him, and I asked —

       "Well, what are you doing in this boat?"

       "I'm going to France," he said, "and you're goin' to put me across."

       I laughed aloud at the suggestion.

       "To put you across to France?" I said. "Do you know how far it is?"

       "Matter of twenty mile," he answered. "And look ye here, boy, if you so much as lift that pipe o' yourn above a whisper, I'll put this in you and throw you down there."

       He said it coolly, as a man who means what he says, and I could not find a ready answer for him, so I rowed on steadily, and saw that he had fixed the tiller and had got the ropes. Then he put the boat's head straight out to sea, and as I rowed the outline of the cliffs became less clear. But I said nothing, although I knew that I had not the strength to row five miles at that hour, and that his idea of getting to France was preposterous.

       By-and-by, when I had rowed for half an hour, a great ocean-going steamer loomed on the horizon, and then came nearer. I looked at her lovingly, while the man in the stern looked at her too, and then watched me.

       "I'll tell you what, younker," he said, as the black-cut hull shaped more clearly, "I'm going under this sheet, but, so help me, Heaven! if you come near me, I'll stick you through it."

       He lay down as the steamer passed, and I watched her go, crying not at all, but only wishing. They had not discovered his escape on shore or there would have been a pursuit. And when we got to France, if ever we did get there, what would he do with me? Would he let me go, or would he stab me and throw me down there in the black water? It was not a nice thought, and for the first time I feared, and knew that my mouth was parched and my strength was failing; but he had come out of hiding again.

       "Maybe you haven't got anything to eat on you, boy, have you?" he asked, "or a sup of something to drink."

       I said that I had neither; but a second thought came to me, and I told him to look in the locker aft, where I had put my lunch the day before. He forced the drawer open and fell upon some slices of bread and butter, which he ate like a ravenous wolf, and, in his hunger, I seemed to be sorry for him.

       "My appetite's all right, ain't it?" he said, when the food was done. "You don't get much white bread in that hole up yonder; and, if it comes to that, 'bacca ain't plentiful. I haven't found a cigar stump for a month, and then a warder dog got it. Say, pal, you haven't got any tobacco about you now?"

       My "no" disappointed him. He curled himself up in the sheet, and seemed to wish to sleep; but before he lay down he spoke of terms.

       "Look here, my boy, you ain't going to come no games when I'm low, you'd better not; I'd have this knife into you before you moved; mark that!"

       I'd no intention of trying to cope with him, so I watched him fall to sleep with the moon shining on him, and the deep lines of pain and suffering in his face. What was the man's story? what fatality of life had sent him there drifting on the Channel with his prison door yet open, and no life before him but the life of the cell, which they say is death? I did not attempt to answer the question, but rowed on gently, the swell throbbing at the beams, and the night clear as the night of harvest.

       We must have rowed at least five miles when I heard the low booming of a gun across the water. The sleeper awoke at the sound and sat up. Then he seemed to shiver all over, and he burst into tears.

       "That's the gun from the kennel, ain't it?" he asked. "They've missed me and are firing; let 'em fire, the dogs; let 'em come here and I'll knife a few, and you, too, younker, if I'm caught, mark that. I ain't going back, not me; I'll go down there first."

       His face was a horrid sight as the fury came upon him, and I felt myself trembling all over, for the end was so far off. They had discovered his escape, no doubt; but what then? How would they retake him? how pursue him? I got my answer as over the Channel flashed the rays of an all-searching light, an arc of fire circling the horizon like a great thing that takes all within its arms! And he and I stood out in the wake as in the clear light of day. I knew that it was the search-light of a gunboat, and that his hours of freedom were numbered. He knew it too, and he began to rave in language that made me reel from him in horror.

       That they had seen us I never had a doubt. The gunboat shot out a stream of red fire over the sea, and the cannon on the hill by the prison answered. It was not a work of many minutes, for the hull came over the horizon quickly, and loomed larger and larger above us, while the throb of the screw ran over the waves and seemed to sound the doom of the man who sat so near me.

       "Say, younker," he said, as the steamer came nearer, "I'm going to take your togs; skin 'em off; do you hear?"

       It was a mad idea, but to disobey him would have been death. I stripped off my clothes, and, shivering in the night air, I put on his, which he threw me. Then, as before, I rowed on, and knew that the steamer was upon us.

       When the gunboat had come right up to us she fired a shot across our bows, and I ceased to row. This exasperated the man beyond all exasperation he had shown.

       "Row, you young lag, row, do you hear me? Don't you see 'em coming along, a dozen of 'em in the boat there? Do you think I'm going to sit here and be taken? Dogs, I'll stick 'em first!"

       As the boat came nearer he lost all reason. He seized me by the throat and hissed his words into my ear, while we both stood up and the old tub rocked. I knew then that he meant to take my life with his, and I closed with him, gripping the arm which carried the knife, and bearing him back upon the gunwale. But his strength was prodigious, so that all my power barely held him close, and gradually I knew that I was being mastered. Inch by inch he freed his arm, inch by inch he pushed me from him, and then freeing the hand which carried the blade, he swung it back to strike me. But at that moment the tub went over, and with a cry of fear, I felt the waters rushing into my ears.

       I think that we must have gone down together, for I felt a terrible pressure at my throat, and when I struck out to swim something soft as the touch of a human body pressed upon my foot. It was this something which held me down, and — oh, the terror of it! as yet it haunts me in the moments of my unresting sleep — kept my head beneath the surface of the Channel, so that the horrid fear of death gripped cold at my heart, and the story of my life seemed nigh to be written. They say that the death by water is a pleasant death, but believe them not. None shall write the agony I suffered in those minutes when the madman held me down, none shall tell of that fierce, agonising struggle to reach the light which shone upon the waters, and yet I could not stir, and the breath of God's night air came not to my lips. The torture seemed beyond human suffering, it could not last, I said, and then of a sudden the hand that held me was loosened, and I knew that another hand was stretched out to mine. In that moment I had risen to the surface, and as the fresh air blew upon my lips I sucked it in as a beast, ravenous — and gripping the strange hand, I fainted.

       Twenty hours after I woke in my own bedroom. They had carried me there, for the story told itself, and our struggle had been seen from the gunboat. But the body of the man with whom I fought the death fight was never found. He had done as he promised to do, and had preferred the cold of the Channel depths to the prison on the hill.

(THE END)