“Has Cuttance got off?” inquired Tonkin.
“No,” replied Oliver, leaping back into the room, just in time to prevent Jim, who had recovered, from making his escape.
“Now, my man, keep quiet,” said Oliver, thrusting him down into a chair. “You and I have met before, and you know that it is useless to attempt resistance.”
Cuttance vouchsafed no reply, but sat still with a dogged expression on his weather-beaten visage.
Hitchin, whose nerves were much shaken by the scene of which he had been a trembling spectator, soon produced ropes, with which the prisoners were bound, and then they were conducted to a place of safe keeping—each of the victors leading the man he had secured, and old Hitchin going before—an excited advance-guard. The two men whom Tregarthen knocked down had recovered, and made their escape just before the fight closed.
Oliver Trembath walked first in the procession, leading Jim Cuttance.
“I gave you credit for a more manly spirit than this,” said Oliver, as he walked along. “How could you make so cowardly an attack on an old man?”
Cuttance made no reply, and Oliver felt sorry that he had spoken, for the remembrance of the incident at the Land’s End was strong upon him, and he would have given all he possessed to have had no hand in delivering the smuggler up to justice. At the same time he felt that the attempt of Cuttance was a dastardly one, and that duty required him to act as he did.
It seemed to Oliver as if Joe Tonkin had divined his thoughts, for at that moment he pushed close to him and whispered in his ear, “Jim Cuttance didn’t mean to rob th’ owld man, sur. He only wanted to give he a fright, an’ make un pay what he did owe un.”
This was a new light on the subject to Oliver, who at once formed his resolution and acted on it.