The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. Not the river, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a second shuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with frantic haste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been none to hear her. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that ever spoke, but never listened, she was utterly alone. She took the oars again, and went on her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the mountains were far away, and she might be pursued. When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, because men might be astir in the boats about the town landing. Anchored in midstream was a great ship,--a man-of-war, bristling with guns. Her boat touched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She bent her head, put forth her strength, and left the black hull behind her. There was another ship to pass, a slaver that had come in the evening before, and would land its cargo at sunrise. The stench that arose from it was intolerable, and, as the girl passed, a corpse, heavily weighted, was thrown into the water. Audrey went swiftly by, and the river lay clean before her. The stars paled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thick white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth’s wing, slipped past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a sycamore. Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that it was well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she was missed, Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skill to do so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of the mountains, she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see him coming toward her.