It was Copenny who undertook to carry the coat and rug back to the spot,
and they willingly agreed to this on the score that he knew best the
precise locality where the catastrophe had befallen. Secretly, however,
he had resolved not to rejoin his companions at a named rendezvous, for
he had bethought himself that if all fled but him, remaining in his
accustomed home, he would necessarily avoid implication in the crime with
them. The boat had been provisioned with a view to their escape by water
when the ambush of the revenue officer had been planned, and they were
now congratulating themselves on their foresight as they prepared to
embark. Clenk had an ill-savored story to tell of the apprehension of a
malefactor through the coercion of hunger, constrained to stop and beg a
meal as he fled from justice, and Drann had known a man whose neck was
forfeited by the necessity of robbing a hen-roost, the cackling poultry
in this instance as efficient in the cause of law and order as the geese
that saved Rome.
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