The unlucky Scott, standing in melancholy attitude by the empty irons, muttered something about the sun having been in his eyes. “I don't know how it was, sir. I ought to have hit him, for certain. I think I did touch him, too, as he went up the wall.”
A stranger to the customs of the place might have imagined that he was listening to a conversation about a pigeon match.
“Tell me all about it,” says Frere, with an angry curse. “I was just turning, your honour, when I hears Scott sing out 'Hullo!' and when I turned round, I saw Dawes's irons on the ground, and him a-scrambling up the heap o' stones yonder. The two men on my right jumped up, and I thought it was a made-up thing among 'em, so I covered 'em with my carbine, according to instructions, and called out that I'd shoot the first that stepped out. Then I heard Scott's piece, and the men gave a shout like. When I looked round, he was gone.”
“Nobody else moved?”
“No, sir. I was confused at first, and thought they were all in it, but Parton and Haines they runs in and gets between me and the wall, and then Mr. Short he come, and we examined their irons.”
“All right?”
“All right, your honour; and they all swore they knowed nothing of it. I know Dawes's irons was all right when he went to dinner.”
Frere stopped and examined the empty fetters. “All right be hanged,” he said. “If you don't know your duty better than this, the sooner you go somewhere else the better, my man. Look here!”
The two ankle fetters were severed. One had been evidently filed through, and the other broken transversely. The latter was bent, as from a violent blow.
“Don't know where he got the file from,” said Warder Short.