London, warning them that a plot was on foot for the liberation of the
prisoners. The magistrates doubted the truth of the information, but
they took precautions, nevertheless, for the frustration of any such
enterprise. Kelly and Deasey were both handcuffed, and locked in
separate compartments of the van; and, instead of three policemen,
not less than twelve were entrusted with its defence. Of this body,
five sat on the box-seat, two were stationed on the step behind, four
followed the van in a cab, and one (Sergeant Brett) sat within the
van, the keys of which were handed in to him through the grating,
after the door had been locked by one of the policemen outside. There
were, in all, six persons in the van: one of these was a boy, aged
twelve, who was being conveyed to a reformatory; three were women
convicted of misdemeanours; and the two Irish-Americans completed the
number. Only the last-mentioned pair were handcuffed, and they were
the only persons whom the constables thought necessary to lock up, the
compartments in which the other persons sat being left open.

At half-past three o'clock the van drove off, closely followed by the
cab containing the balance of the escort. Its route lay through some
of the principal streets, then through the suburbs on the south side,
into the borough of Salford, where the county gaol is situated. In all
about two miles had to be traversed, and of this distance the first
half was accomplished without anything calculated to excite suspicion
being observed; but there was mischief brewing, for all that, and the
crisis was close at hand. Just as the van passed under the railway
arch that spans the Hyde-road at Bellevue, a point midway between
the city police office and the Salford gaol, the driver was suddenly
startled by the apparition of a man standing in the middle of the
road with a pistol aimed at his head, and immediately the astonished
policeman heard himself called upon, in a loud, sharp voice, to "pull