."

And, as a matter of fact, that was the smugglers' ferocious idea of
humour. They would hang any undesirable man, like these runners, whom it
would make too great a stir to murder outright, over the edge of a low
bank, and swear to him that he was clawing the brink of Shakespeare's
Cliff or any other hundred-foot drop. The wretched creatures suffered
all the tortures of death before they let go, and, as a rule, they never
returned to our parts.

CHAPTER THREE

The spirit of the age has changed; everything has changed so utterly
that one can hardly believe in the existence of one's earlier self. But
I can still remember how, at that moment, I made the acquaintance of
my heart--a thing that bounded and leapt within my chest, a little
sickeningly. The other details I forget.

Jack Rangsley was a tall, big-boned, thin man, with something sinister
in the lines of his horseman's cloak, and something reckless in the way
he set his spurred heel on the ground. He was the son of an old Marsh
squire. Old Rangsley had been head of the last of the Owlers--the
aristocracy of export smugglers--and Jack had sunk a little in becoming
the head of the Old Bourne Tap importers. But he was hard enough,
tyrannical enough, and had nerve enough to keep Free-trading alive in
our parts until long after it had become an anachronism. He ended his
days on the gallows, of course, but that was long afterwards.

"I'd give a dollar to know what's going on in those runners' heads,"
Rangsley said, pointing back with his crop. He laughed gayly. The great
white face of the quarry rose up pale in the moonlight; the dusky red
fires of the limekilns glowed at the base, sending up a blood-red dust
of sullen smoke. "I'll swear they think they've dropped straight into
hell.

"You'll have to cut the country, John," he added suddenly, "they'll have
got your name uncommon pat. I did my best for you." He had had me tied
up like that before the runners' eyes in order to take their suspicions
off me. He had made a pretence to murder me with the same idea. But
he didn't believe they were taken in. "There'll be warrants out before
morning, if they ain't too shaken. But what were you doing in the
business? The two Spaniards were lying in the fern looking on when you
come blundering your clumsy nose in. If it hadn't been for Rooksby you
might have------ Hullo, there!" he broke off.

An answer came from the black shadow of a clump of roadside elms. I
made