about before he got home. By that time Ezra hoped to be beyond the reach of all danger. He had a thousand five pound Bank of England notes sewn into the back of his waistcoat, for knowing that a crash might come at any moment, he had long made provision against it. With this he felt that he could begin life again in the new world, and with his youth and energy he might hope to attain success. As to his father, he was fully determined to abandon him completely at the first opportunity.
Through the whole of that wintry night the fishing-boat scudded away to the eastward, and the two fugitives remained upon deck, drenched through with rain and with spray, but feeling that the wild turmoil around them was welcome as a relief to their own thoughts. Better the cutting wind and the angry sea than the thought of the dead girl upon the rails and of the bloodhounds of the law.
Ezra pointed up once at the moon, on whose face two storm wreaths had marked a rectangular device.
"Look at that!" he cried. "It looks like a gallows."
"What is there to live for?" said his father, looking up with the cold light glittering on his deep-set eyes.
"Not much for you, perhaps," his son retorted. "You've had your fling, but I am young and have not yet had a fair show. I have no fancy to be scragged yet."
"Poor lad!" the father muttered; "poor lad!"
"They haven't caught me yet," said Ezra. "If they did I question whether they could do much. They couldn't hang three for the death of one. You would have to swing, and that's about all."
About two in the morning they saw a line of lights, which the fisherman informed them was from the town of Worthing. Again before daybreak they scudded past another and far brighter and larger area of twinkling points, which marked the position of Brighton. They were nearly half-way upon their journey already. As the dawn approached the dark storm-clouds gathered away to the northern horizon and lay in a great shadow over the coast.
