He gave a little involuntary start. "What!" he cried. "Not him that took
a coin from the British Museum?"
I bridled up angrily. "I did not take it," I cried with all my soul. "I
am innocent, and have been put in here by some terrible error."
He was silent for half a second. Then he said musingly, "Sir, I believe
you. You are speaking the truth. I will do all I can to make things easy
for you."
That was all he said then. But from that day forth he always spoke to me
in private as "Sir," and never again as "1430."
An incident arose at last out of this condition of things which had a
very important effect upon my future position.
One day, about three months after I was committed to prison, we were all
told off as usual to work in a small quarry on the cliff-side
overhanging the long expanse of pebbly beach known as the Chesil. I had
reason to believe afterwards that a large open fishing boat lying upon
the beach below at the moment had been placed there as part of a
concerted scheme by the friends of the Hampstead burglar; and that it
contained ordinary clothing for all the men in our gang, except myself
only. The idea was evidently that the gang should overpower the warder,
seize the boat, change their clothes instantly, taking turns about
meanwhile with the navigation, and make straight off for the shore at
Lulworth, where they could easily disperse without much chance of being
recaptured. But of all this I was of course quite ignorant at the time,
for they had not thought well to intrust their secret to the ears of the
sneaking virtuous Methodist.
A few minutes after we arrived at the quarry, I was working with two
other men at putting a blast in, when I happened to look round quite
accidentally, and to my great horror, saw 1247, the brutal wife-kicker,
standing behind with a huge block of stone in his hands, poised just
above the warder's head, in a threatening attitude. The other men stood
around waiting and watching. I had only just time to cry out in a tone
of alarm, "Take care, warder, he'll murder you!" when the stone
descended upon the warder's head, and he fell at once, bleeding and half
senseless, upon the ground beside me. In a second, while he shrieked and
struggled, the whole gang was pressing savagely and angrily around him.
There was no time to think or hesitate. Before I knew almost what I was
doing, I had seized his gun and ammunition, and, standing over his
prostrate body, I held the men at bay for a single moment. Then 1247
advanced threateningly, and tried to put his foot upon the fallen
warder.
I didn't wait or reflect one solitary second. I drew the trigger, and
fired full upon him. The bang sounded fiercely in my ears, and for a
moment I could see nothing through the smoke of the rifle.
With a terrible shriek he fell in front of me, not dead, but seriously
wounded.
"The boat, the boat," the others cried loudly. "Knock him down! Kill
him! Take the boat, all of you."
At that moment the report of my shot had brought another warder hastily
to the top of the quarry.
"Help, help!" I cried. "Come quick, and save us. These brutes are trying
to murder our warder!"
The man rushed back to call for aid; but the way down the zigzag path
was steep and tortuous, and it was some time before they could manage to
get down and succour us.
Meanwhile the other convicts pressed savagely around us, trying to jump
upon the warder's body and force their way past to the beach beneath us.
I fired again, for the rifle was double-barrelled; but it was impossible
to reload in such a tumult, so, after the next shot, which hit no one,
I laid about me fiercely with the butt end of the gun, and succeeded in
knocking down four of the savages, one after another. By that time the
warders from above had safely reached us, and formed a circle of fixed
bayonets around the rebellious prisoners.
"Thank God!" I cried, flinging down the rifle, and rushing up to the
prostrate warder. "He is still alive. He is breathing! He is breathing!"
"Yes," he murmured in a faint voice, "I am alive, and I thank you for
it. But for you, sir, these fellows here would certainly have murdered
me."
"You are badly wounded yourself, 1430," one of the other warders said to
me, as the rebels were rapidly secured and marched off sullenly back to
prison. "Look, your own arm is bleeding fiercely."
Then for the first time I was aware that I was one mass of wounds from
head to foot, and that I was growing faint from loss of blood. In
defending the fallen warder I had got punched and pummelled on every
side, just the same as one used to get long ago in a bully at football
when I was a boy at Rugby, only much more seriously.
The warders brought down seven stretchers: one for me; one for the
wounded warder; one for 1247, whom I had shot; and four for the convicts
whom I had knocked over with the butt end of the rifle. They carried us
up on them, strongly guarded, in a long procession.
At the door of the infirmary the Governor met us. "1430," he said to me,
in a very kind voice, "you have behaved most admirably. I saw you myself
quite distinctly from my drawing-room windows. Your bravery and
intrepidity are well deserving of the highest recognition."
"Sir," I answered, "I have only tried to do my duty. I couldn't stand by
and see an innocent man murdered by such a pack of bloodthirsty
ruffians."
The Governor turned aside a little surprised. "Who is 1430?" he asked
quietly.
A subordinate, consulting a book, whispered my name and supposed crime
to him confidentially. The Governor nodded twice, and seemed to be
satisfied.
"Sir," the wounded warder said faintly from his stretcher, "1430 is an
innocent man unjustly condemned, if ever there was one."