“How do you mean?” I said.  “Caution?”

“I was sent for life.  It’s death to come back.  There’s been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if took.”

As Herbert was away, I put the man in the spare room, and gave out that he was my uncle.

He told me something of his story next day, and when Herbert came back and we had found a bed-room for our visitor in Essex Street, he told us all of it.  His name was Magwitch—­Abel Magwitch—­he called himself Provis now—­and he had been left by a travelling tinker to grow up alone.  “In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail—­that’s my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.”  But there was a man who “set up fur a gentleman, named Compeyson,” and this Compeyson’s business was swindling, forging, and stolen banknote passing.  Magwitch became his servant, and when both men were arrested, Compeyson turned round on the man whom he had employed, and got off with seven years to Magwitch’s fourteen.  Compeyson was the second convict of my childhood.

On consideration of the case, and after consultation with Mr. Jaggers, who corroborated the statement that a colonist named Abel Magwitch, of New South Wales, was my benefactor, and admitted that a Mr. Provis had written to him on behalf of Magwitch, concerning my address, we decided that the best thing to be done was to take a lodging for Mr. Provis on the riverside below the Pool, at Mill Pond Bank.  It was out of the way, and in case of danger it would be easy to get away by a packet steamer.

The only danger was from Compeyson—­for he had gone in terror of his life, and feared the vengeance of the man he had betrayed.

IV—­My Fortune

We were soon warned that Compeyson was aware of the return of his enemy, and that flight was necessary.  Both Herbert and I noticed how quickly Provis had become softened, and on the night when we were to take him on board a Hamburg steamer he was very gentle.

We were out in mid-stream in a small rowing boat, moving quietly with the tide, when, just as the Hamburg steamer came in sight, a four-oared galley ran aboard of us, and the man who held the lines in it called out, “You have a returned transport there.  That’s the man wrapped in the cloak.  His name is Abel Magwitch—­otherwise Provis.  I call upon him to surrender, and you to assist.”

At once there was great confusion.  The steamer was right upon us, and I heard the order given to stop the paddles.  In the same moment I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder, and the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of a shrinking man in the galley.  Still in the same moment I saw that the face disclosed was the face of the other convict of long ago, and white terror was on it.  Then I heard a cry, and a loud splash in the water, and for an instant I seemed to struggle with a thousand mill weirs; the instant past, I was taken on board the galley.  Herbert was there, but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone.  Presently we saw a man swimming, but not swimming easily, and knew him to be Magwitch.  He was taken on board, and instantly menacled at the wrists and ankles.