They both execrated the place in very strong language, and
gradually growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say.
After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down
and been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for
feeling certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity.
Indeed, I was not only so changed in the course of nature, but so
differently dressed and so differently circumstanced, that it was
not at all likely he could have known me without accidental help.
Still, the coincidence of our being together on the coach, was
sufficiently strange to fill me with a dread that some other
coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his hearing, with my
name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as we touched
the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I executed
successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my feet;
I had but to turn a hinge to get it out: I threw it down before me,
got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first
stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their
way with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited
off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew
waiting for them at the slime-washed stairs, - again heard the
gruff "Give way, you!" like and order to dogs - again saw the
wicked Noah's Ark lying out on the black water.
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