e narrows,
with the punt hard after it. The rain fell in torrents and drenched the
occupants of both vessels; but those whose faces were towards the stern
could see the bush-fire still raging. "The rain'll stop it spreadin',"
Bill called out cheerfully, and the lawyer rejoiced, because the fire
was on Miss Du Plessis' land. Long was the journey, tired were the
rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were
the crews, that reached the Richards' homestead. The prisoner was awake
by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt,
and a paddle had splashed his face. When walked ashore, he had made a
dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short. "Yore in too
great a herry, Merk Devis," he had said; "we went you, my men, and we'll
hev you, dead or alive." So Mark Davis, since that was the name of
Wilkinson's dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the
Richards' place. There the party found Maguffin and the constable.

The colonel's servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but,
having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of
startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of
the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house. He at once
enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that
they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost
speed to report. The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again,
was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the
latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old
putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but
the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the
mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was
disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned
Sylvanus, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any
number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death. Drawing his
baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr.
Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry,
induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from
adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering
with an officer in the discharge of his duty. Finally he was mollified
by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom