Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 16 Page 3

after the blows were dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face.

And on the ground beside her, when Joe picked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had been filed asunder.

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by either of the two convicts who had escaped last night.

Further, one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron.