uld be dead in his
teeth coming back. It might take him a week's tacking and beating about
before he got home. By that time Ezra hoped to be beyond the reach of
all danger. He had a thousand five pound Bank of England notes sewn
into the back of his waistcoat, for knowing that a crash might come at
any moment, he had long made provision against it. With this he felt
that he could begin life again in the new world, and with his youth and
energy he might hope to attain success. As to his father, he was fully
determined to abandon him completely at the first opportunity.

Through the whole of that wintry night the fishing-boat scudded away to
the eastward, and the two fugitives remained upon deck, drenched through
with rain and with spray, but feeling that the wild turmoil around them
was welcome as a relief to their own thoughts. Better the cutting wind
and the angry sea than the thought of the dead girl upon the rails and
of the bloodhounds of the law.

Ezra pointed up once at the moon, on whose face two storm wreaths had
marked a rectangular device.

"Look at that!" he cried. "It looks like a gallows."

"What is there to live for?" said his father, looking up with the cold
light glittering on his deep-set eyes.

"Not much for you, perhaps," his son retorted. "You've had your fling,
but I am young and have not yet had a fair show. I have no fancy to be
scragged yet."

"Poor lad!" the father muttered; "poor lad!"

"They haven't caught me yet," said Ezra. "If they did I question
whether they could do much. They couldn't hang three for the death of
one. You would have to swing, and that's about all."

About two in the morning they saw a line of lights, which the fisherman
informed them was from the town of Worthing. Again before daybreak they
scudded past another and far brighter and larger area of twinkling
points, which marked the position of Brighton. They were nearly
half-way upon their journey already. As the dawn approached the dark
storm-clouds gathered away to the northern horizon and lay in a great
shadow over the coast. On all other points the sky was clear, save that
here and there a single puff of white vapour sailed along like the
feather of some gigantic bird floating in the ocean of air.
These isolated clouds, which had been pearly grey in the dim light of
early day, gradually took a lilac tint, which deepened into pink, and
then blushed suddenly to a fiery scarlet as the red rim of t