I could stay no longer. Viney was struggling desperately, reasoning, entreating. I pushed open the staircase door, but neither seemed to note me. My grandfather had Viney by arm and collar, and was shaking him, face downward.
"I'll go halves, Kemp—I'll go halves," Viney gasped hoarsely. "Divide how you like—but don't, don't be a fool! Take five hundred! Think o' the boy!"
"I've thought of the boy, an' I've thought of his father! God'll mind the boy you've made an orphan! Come!"
My grandfather flung wide the door, and tumbled Viney up the steps into the court. The little table with the lamp on it rocked from a kick, and I saved it by sheer instinct, for I was sick with terror.
I followed into the court, and saw my grandfather now nearly at the street corner, hustling and dragging his prisoner. "Dan! Dan!" Viney was crying, struggling wildly. "Dan! I've got it! Draw him off me, Dan! Go for the kid an' draw him off! Go for the kid on the stairs!"
And I could see a man come groping between the wall and the posts, a hand feeling from one post to the next, and the stick in the other hand scraping the wall. I ran out to the farther side of the alley.
Viney's shout distracted my grandfather's attention, and I saw him looking anxiously back. With that Viney took his chance, and flung himself desperately round the end post. His collar went with a rip, and he ran. For a moment my grandfather stood irresolute, and I ran toward him. "I am safe here," I cried. "Come away, grandfather!"
But when he saw me clear of the groping man, he turned and dashed after Viney; while from the bar-parlour I heard a curse and a crash of broken glass. I vaguely wondered if Viney's confederate were smashing windows in the partition; and then I ran my hardest after Grandfather Nat.
Viney had made up the street toward the bridge and Ratcliff Highway, and Captain Nat pursued with shouts of "Stop him!" Breathless and unsteady, I made slow progress with my smaller legs over the rough cobble-stones, which twisted my feet all ways as I ran. But I was conscious of a gathering of other cries ahead, and I struggled on, with throbbing head and bursting heart. Plainly there were more shouts as I neared the corner, and a running of more men than two. And when the corner was turned, and the bridge and the lock before me, I saw that the chase was over.
Three bull's-eye lanterns were flashing to and fro, pointing their long rays down on the black dock-water, and the policemen who directed them were calling to dockmen on the dark quay, who cried back, and ran, and called again.