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However, when I went back to our rooms on Monday, my head full of arrangements for the journey, I found a letter, addressed to me and delivered by hand. It said:

"If you want information about your guest, you should come tonight or tomorrow night to the old house near the lime kiln on the marshes. Tell no one. You must come alone."

Wemmick advised us to move Magwitch out of the country in the middle of the week. So we decided to row the boat down to Clara's house on Wednesday, collect Magwitch, and continue right down the river to Essex, where we could stop one of the foreign ships sailing from the port of London to Ger many or Holland. With luck, nobody would notice us or suspect us. Our friend Startop agreed to row instead of me, as my hands were still too painful.

I paid Clarrikers Miss Havisham's nine hundred pounds, and felt glad that Herbert's future, at least, was safe. Clarrikers were going to send Herbert to India, to open a new office there. So while helping my old friend, I would be losing him at the same time.

I stopped in town only to ask about Miss Havisham. She was still very ill, it seemed. Then I walked fast on to the dark lonely marshes. Soon I arrived at the limekiln, which was still burning, although the workmen had all gone home. I pushed open the door of the old house, which I thought was uninhabited, but to my surprise there was a bed, a table and a candle inside Suddenly the candle was blown out, I was attacked from behind and my arms were tied close to my sides with a thick rope. The pain in my injured arm was terrible. In a moment the candle was lit again, and I recognized my attacker. Orlick! I saw he had been drinking, and I knew I was in a very dangerous situation.

I did not have time to consider. I rushed out again and was just in time to catch the afternoon coach.

"Why have you brought me here?" I asked.

"Now," he said fiercely, "I've got you!"

"Don't yon know?" he replied, drinking straight from a bottle. "Because you're my enemy. I lost that job at Miss Havisham's because of you. And what's more, Biddy would have liked me if you hadn't been there. You've been in my way ever since you were a child. And now I'm going to have your life! Tonight you're going to die!"

I felt I was looking down into my own grave. I could see no possible way of escape.

"More than that," he said, "I don't want anything left of you. I'll put your body in the kiln. Even your clothes will be burnt, and in the morning there'll be nothing left."

"And I know all about that convict you're hiding. I've waited and watched outside your rooms and on the stairs. You fell over me once. I've got a friend who's going to inform the police about him. Yes, Compeyson'll make sure he's hanged, when you're dead!"

"Another thing," he said, smiling cruelly, "it was your fault your ugly sister was attacked. I did it, I hit her with the iron chain your convict left on the marshes, but I did it be cause I hated you!" He drank again. I watched the level of the liquid go down. I knew that when he finished the bottle, my life would end.

I realized I had not told anybody where I was going. Nobody would know where to look for me.

The last of the rum went down his throat, and picking up his hammer he came towards me. Determined to fight, I shouted as loudly as I could. Suddenly the door was thrown open and Herbert and Startop rushed in. With a violent shout Orlick jumped over the table and escaped into the night.

They took me back to London that night, and looked after me carefully all the next day, so that, although my arm was still aching, and I felt very weak, I was fit enough for the planned journey on Wednesday.

My two friends had found Orlick's letter to me, which, in my hurry, I had dropped in my room in London. They had suspected some wicked plot, and come straight to the town, and then to the marshes, to find me. Luckily they had arrived just in time.