l, near the house boat Annabel
Lee. This consisted of three men, two of them naked except for bathing
trunks of the most abbreviated sort, running swiftly and earnestly up
and down the edge of the canal. He saw with astonishment that the two
men in bathing suits were handcuffed together, the left wrist of one to
the right wrist of the other. A rope was tied to the handcuffs, and
the other end of it was held by the third man, who was dressed in
ordinary tweeds. The third man had a magazine rifle over one shoulder.
He followed about twenty feet behind the two men in bathing suits and
drove them.

Cleggett perceived that the man who was doing the driving was the same
who had watched the Jasper B. so persistently the day before from the
deck of the Annabel Lee. He was middle-sized, and inclined to be
stout, and yet he followed his strange team with no apparent effort.
Cleggett saw through the glass that he had a rather heavy black
mustache, and was again struck by something vaguely familiar about him.
The two men in bathing suits were slender and undersized; they did not
look at all like athletes, and although they moved as fast as they
could it was apparent that they got no pleasure out of it. They ran
with their heads hanging down, and it seemed to Cleggett that they were
quarreling as they ran, for occasionally one of them would give a
vicious jerk to the handcuffs that would almost upset the other, and
that must have hurt the wrists of both of them.

As Cleggett watched, the driver pulled them up short, and waved them
towards the canal. They stopped, and it was apparent that they were
balking and expostulating. But the driver was inexorable. He went near
to them and threatened their bare backs with the slack of the rope.
Gingerly and shiveringly they stepped into the cold water, while the
driver stood on the bank. The water was up to their waists and he had
to threaten them again with his rope before they would duck their heads
under.

When he allowed them on shore again they needed no urging, it was
evident, to make them hit up a good rate of speed, and back and forth
along the bank they sprinted. But the cold bath had not improved their
temper, for suddenly one of them leaped and kicked sidewise at the
other, with the result that both toppled to the ground. The stout man
was upon them in an instant, hazing them with the rope end. He drove
them, still lashing out at each other with their bare feet, into t