his head. He was soaked
with water, caked with mud and limped and shivered as he walked. He set
Pip on a tombstone and tilted him so far back that the church steeple
seemed to turn a somersault, growling at him in a terrible voice.

Pip had never been so frightened in his life. With a trembling voice he
begged his captor to spare him. The man asked him his name and where he
lived, and told him he would let him go on one condition. He had to
promise to come next morning at daybreak to a certain spot in the
marshes and to bring a file and something to eat. And the man said if
Pip did not do so, or if he told any one what he was going to do, he
would catch him again and cut out his heart and eat it.

This terrible threat frightened poor little Pip more than ever. His
voice shook so that he could hardly promise, and when the man set him
down he ran home as fast as his legs would carry him.

The evening was a miserable one. Pip thought he would save his own
supper for the man in case he should not be able to get into his
sister's pantry, so instead of eating his bread and butter he slipped it
down his trouser-leg.

Before long a great gun began to boom, and he asked Joe what it was. The
blacksmith told him that in the river across the marshes were anchored
some big hulks of ships, like wicked Noah's arks, where convicts were
kept prisoners, and that the gun was a signal that some of these
convicts had escaped. Then Pip knew the man he had promised to help was
a criminal--perhaps a murderer--who had got away and was hiding from the
soldiers.

All night he did not sleep. He hated to steal the food, but he felt
certain he would be killed if he did not. So at dawn he slipped down
stairs, got a file from the forge, unlocked the pantry, took some bread
and cheese and a pork pie that Uncle Pumblechook had sent for Christmas
dinner, and ran out through the foggy morning to the marshes.

He had not got quite there when he came on a man in gray, sitting on the
ground, with an iron fetter on his leg. Pip thought he was the one he
was in search of, but as soon as the other turned his face he saw by a
bruise on the cheek that he was not. This second man in gray, as soon
as he saw him, sprang to his feet and ran away.

Greatly wondering, Pip went on, and at the right spot he found the man
who had frightened him in the graveyard. He seemed now to be almost
starved, for he snatched the food and ate it like a hungry dog. He asked
Pip