Even as I did so Tom Barker was flung from his seat, and fell heavily into the road, where he lay like a log, stunned if not dead. Terrified by this violence, I was about to spring down and make good my escape in the darkness, when I felt my arm seized in an iron grip, and a voice, which I recognized as belonging to the man Lewis, spoke in my ear.
"Stay still, sir; you may get hurt if you try to run. I'll see you come to no harm."
CHAPTER X.
HIGHWAY PIRATES.
It did not take me long to arrive at an understanding of the true state of affairs. The convicts had risen, overpowered their guards, and seized the coach. From scraps of conversation which passed between them, I subsequently learned that the man whom I had seen appear and disappear so mysteriously outside the Sportsman Inn was a friend of one of the prisoners, and, under the pretence of wishing him good-bye, had handed up a couple of small files, with which several of the men had freed themselves from their fetters. Once or twice I had heard a slight grating noise, but, as I have already said, I had attributed the sound to the swaying of the lamp.
By some method of communication such as criminals seem always able to establish, the three convicts inside had been informed of what was about to take place, so that at the same moment the outbreak took place on the roof they flung themselves on the warder who rode with them, and succeeded in holding him down and wresting from him the pistol with which he was armed.
To a certain extent stupefied by the shock of this sudden surprise, I had but a confused notion of what took place during the next ten minutes. Together with George Woodley, who had also been seized, I was thrust to the side of the road, while a man told off to keep watch over us ordered us gruffly to sit down facing the hedge with our feet in the ditch, as a greater precaution against our making any sudden attempt to bolt.
In this position we could only judge by the sounds and conversation going on behind us what was actually taking place.
"Better keep still, Master Eden," whispered George. "We'd be safer in a cage of wild beasts than among these men at this moment."