"Mind!" coughed my fugitive, wiping blood from his face with his forearm: "I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!"
"Don’t matter much," said the lead Hunter; "it'll do you small good, you wretch, being in the same cursed condition yourself. Cuffs there!"
"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good than it does now," said my fugitive, with a greedy laugh. "I took him. He knows it. That's enough for me."
I looked back to see that the other Howl Beast had turned back to a man as well. He was livid to look at, and, in addition to a gaunt and rather pallid frame, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a Hunter to keep himself from falling.
"Take notice, man - he tried to murder me," were his first words. “He was the one who bit me- who turned me. I was but an innocent man.”
"Tried to murder him?" said my fugitive, disdainfully. "Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here - dragged him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Bite him? Bah! Couldn’t I nor nobody done to him what hadn’t already been done.”
The other one still gasped, "He tried - he tried - to - murder me. He made me turn. He created this - this monster. Bear - bear witness."
"Lookee here!" said my fugitive to the lead Hunter. "Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got clear of these death-cold flats likewise - look at my leg: you won't find much iron on it - if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let him go free? Let him kill an’ ram-page and turn loose on this here willage? No, no, no. If I had died in these marshes;" and he made an emphatic swing around with his manacled hands; "I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my hold."
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I was but a wanderer in these marshes before he came up.”
"He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. "He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile - which could not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression - looked at the Hunters, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker.
"Do you see him?" pursued my convict. "Do you see what a villain he is? Do you see those groveling and wandering eyes?”
"Enough a’ this parley," said the lead Hunter. "Get them chains on."
At this point, my convict looked round for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back when we came up, but had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.
"All right," said the lead Hunter. "March."
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are expected on board," said the leader to my fugitive; "they’s know you’re coming. Don' straggle, you dog. Close up ‘ere."
The two were kept apart, and each was led a separate Hunter, holding a chain secured to their handcuffs. I had hold of Joe's hand now. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. We could not go fast, because of the fugitives’ injuries; and they were so spent, that two or three times they collapsed onto the ground. The Hunters made their displeasure known by viciously yanking the chains and even dragging the miserable men for stretches at a time.
