As I did so a man rose up suddenly from the ground like a black shadow, and hurling himself on me before I could move, clutched me round the waist.

“Got yer!” he roared.  Then at the top of his voice—­“Here he is!  Help!  Help!”

CHAPTER II

A BICYCLE AND SOME OVERALLS

I was taken so utterly by surprise that nothing except sheer strength saved me from going over.  As it was I staggered back a couple of paces, fetching up against the railings with a bang that nearly knocked the breath out of me.  By a stroke of luck I must have crushed my opponent’s hand against one of the bars, for with a cry of pain he momentarily slackened his grip.

That was all I wanted.  Wrenching my left arm free, I brought up my elbow under his chin with a wicked jolt; and then, before he could recover, I smashed home a short right-arm punch that must have landed somewhere in the neighbourhood of his third waistcoat button.  Anyhow it did the business all right.  With a quaint noise, like the gurgle of a half-empty bath, he promptly released me from his embrace, and sank down on to the grass almost as swiftly and silently as he had arisen.

I doubt if a more perfectly timed blow has ever been delivered, but unfortunately I had no chance of studying its effects.  Through the fog I could hear the sound of footsteps—­quick heavy footsteps hurrying towards me from either direction.  For one second I thought of scrambling back over the railings and taking to the wood again.  Then suddenly a kind of mischievous exhilaration at the danger gripped hold of me, and jumping over the prostrate figure on the ground I bolted forwards into the mist.  The warders, who must have been quite close, evidently heard me, for from both sides came hoarse shouts of “There he goes!” “Look out there!” and other well-meant pieces of advice.

It was a funny sort of sensation dodging through the fog, feeling that at any moment one might blunder up against the muzzle of a loaded carbine.  The only guide I had as to my direction was the slope of the ground.  I knew that as long as I kept on going uphill I was more or less on the right track, for the big granite-strewn bulk of North Hessary lay right in front of me, and I had to cross it to get to the Walkham Valley.

On I went, the ground rising higher and higher, until at last the wet slippery grass began to give way to a broken waste of rocks and heather.  I had reached the top, and although I could see nothing on account of the mist, I knew that right below me lay the woods, with only about a mile of steeply sloping hillside separating me from their agreeable privacy.

Despite the cold and the wet and the fact that I was getting devilish hungry, my spirits somehow began to rise.  Good luck always acts on me as a sort of tonic, and so far I had certainly been amazingly lucky.  I felt that if only the rain would clear up now and give me a chance of getting dry, Fate would have treated me as handsomely as an escaped murderer had any right to expect.