Eager hands seized the wretched purveyor of quack powders and bore him towards the river, Firestone and I following at the heels of the crowd.
"Shall us tie a stoane round the neck of he?" asked one of the villagers.
"Hither, my friend," replied Firestone, and as the man came nearer he continued in a low voice, inaudible to the miserable rogue: "We do not mean to kill the man, Get ready a rope to throw to him. And canst swim?"
"Ay," replied the villager. "Only the other day they gave I a jar o' small beer for swimmin' from Morwell'm——"
"Then I'll give you another if you have to go in and fetch him out; but don't go in, mind you, unless I give you word."
At the edge of the river was a small stone quay, below which the water flowed gently, only a few feet from the top of the wharf, it being nearly high tide. It was nearly dark, but the other bank was just discernible.
The men who had been cheated out of their hard-earned spending money entered into the punishment of the rascal with a will. Seized by the arms and legs by half a dozen lusty quarrymen, the terrified rogue was swung to and fro for a few seconds, his screams for mercy adding to the zest of his tormentors. Then, to the accompaniment of a loud shout, the men hurled him far into the river, where he disappeared with a heavy splash.
"He must be dead. He sank like a stone," I exclaimed, after what seemed to me a long interval.
"We've overdone it," shouted the colonel excitedly. "Quick, you; after him. Perchance he was winded by the fall," he added to the man who had boasted of his swimming prowess.
But before the man could throw off his heavy boots, the lank black hair of the Southampton merchant—as he termed himself, though falsely, as we knew too well—appeared above the surface, half-way across the stream, and with astonishing swiftness he struck out for the opposite shore.