ll be to choose a leader. Now, who'll
you have?"

"Yourself," cried a voice, and to this there was a unanimous murmur of
approbation.

"Very well," exclaimed the newly-appointed captain, jumping down into
the centre of his gang. "Then the first thing is to get these two
'screws' out of the road. They'd have shot us if they could have got
at their barkers, and I propose to serve 'em the same way. It's the
safest plan. Hand me the pistols!"

The awful coolness with which the man made this terrible proposal
thrilled me with horror. Left to himself, the fellow would, I feel
sure, have carried out his abominable intention; but his comrades,
hardened and reckless offenders as some of them were, could not be
persuaded to follow him to such extremes of crime.

"No, no, Rodwood," cried one and another; "there's no need to risk
being scragged. Hoist them inside this empty cottage; that'll give us
a fair start before they're likely to be found. Put the coachman in
there too, and tie his legs; he won't find voice enough to shout for
help for some time yet, even if any one chanced to hear him."

The warders and poor Tom were accordingly half lifted, half dragged
inside the ruined cottage, and the men came back to decide what was to
be done next.

"Where are we going?" asked several voices.

"Well, we must clear out from here," answered Rodwood. "The whole
countryside will be raised up against us before morning. We've got a
coach and horses at our disposal, so why not go off in that? I'll
drive, if no other man wants to handle the ribbons."

"That's all very well," muttered a man named Ned Arch, the convict to
whom the file had been given. "That's all very well, but we can't go
farther than the end of this stage. They'll be on the lookout there to
change the horses, and they'll see at once that something's wrong if we
try to drive through without stopping."

"True," answered Rodwood. "We must get off the main road."

It was at this point that I heard Lewis suddenly break in on the
conversation.

"If there's no better plan going," he said, "why not make for the
coast? We ain't above four miles from Rockymouth, I reckon, and once
there I'll undertake to hide you all in a place where you can lie for a
time with no danger of being found. I've got friends there to whom,
with a bit of care, we can apply for help; and with anything like luck
we ought to be safe across the water, every one of us, by this day
we