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276 its startled gallop died away like the roll of a drum; but heavier hoofs were coming up behind.

Tom sprang up, but sat down again with a yelp of pain. His ankle was badly sprained. He felt for a weapon, but he had thrown them all away; even his knife he seemed to have hurled after the long boots, or left in a pocket of the blue jacket, which had been jettisoned in its turn.

He sat still and groaned. To have to surrender sitting still! What an end to his ride! What a beginning of the end of all!

The heavy hoofs came nearer, nearer. Three troopers laboured into view, gave a yell and put spurs to their tired horses, but ceased to spur them when they saw their man.

“Why, who are you?” cried they.

“The man you want.”

“I wish you were! You’re all we shall get with these horses. But you must have heard him pass?”

A light broke over Tom; he said he had heard it, but some time since, when it was darker and he was half-asleep.

“And what made you think you were our man?” asked another trooper suspiciously.

“I—I—I’m a runaway convict.”

“Then you’re better than nothing,” cried the former speaker. “You’ll come with us; but the man we’ve lost is an Italian, and there’s precious little of the Italian about you!”

There was less than little: he had thrown everything away, but without a thought of saving his neck by so doing. Nor indeed had he saved it yet.