EXTRANEOUS ADVENTURES 285 



It was nearly two months before O'Reilly saw or heard from 

 Macguire again, but early in February he appeared and details 

 of the plan were agreed upon. On the appointed night O'Reilly 

 walked down the road and into the woods; there were few locks 

 or guards at the penal colony for there was thought to be no 

 possibility of escape; besides which, O'Reilly had, as I have 

 said, more freedom than most of the prisoners. He had got 

 himself a pair of freeman's shoes, the better to baffle identifica- 

 tion of his tracks, and in them he set forth. Almost im- 

 mediately he realized that he was being followed. But the man 

 behind him was himself an ex-prisoner, now a mahogany-sawyer, 

 and when he knew what O'Reilly was doing, he wished him 

 good luck and promised to put the authorities on a false scent. 

 On went O'Reilly and at the appointed place he hid in the 

 woods beside the road until he heard whistled the opening 

 strains of ''St. Patrick's Day," the signal agreed upon with 

 Macguire. Another man was with Macguire, both on horse- 

 back, and with a horse for O'Reilly; together the three rode for 

 hours through the night till they reached the shore, put to sea 

 in a rowboat, and, after a detour that took the boat nearly out 

 of sight of land, reached, in the afternoon, the headland where 

 they were to watch for the Vigilant. 



They saw the whalers standing out to sea, and pulled out 

 to meet them. In their haste to escape they had forgotten both 

 food and water and they suffered greatly in consequence. But 

 they pulled strongly and in all possible haste to overhaul the 

 Vigilant and, when they had come near enough, made frantic 

 signals for help. For a time she seemed to be bearing down 

 toward them, but as a matter of fact she had not sighted them. 

 Before their unbelieving eyes, she tacked, stood out to sea 

 again, and soon left them far behind. 



The other two took O'Reilly ashore and, hiding him in a 

 remote little valley, left him until they could arrange a new plan 

 for his flight. Search revealed no water he dared drink, and at 

 last he caught and killed an opossum and ate some of the meat. 



The next day, so bitter his impatience, he rowed to sea alone 

 in the merest shell of a rowboat, and sighted the Vigilant; but 



