They probably stood in a group at the end of the path, and the first speaker read his “bill” aloud, the others perhaps reading too, for I caught only certain words: “Reward--forty years--slim, lively--boy--well grown--Redwood, South Ca'lina”; and then it came upon me that he was reading a placard and description of Calhoun and me, and that himself was no other than Gerry, the steersman. That was unpleasant, but I wished he would read the description more clearly and read it all. “Well, now,” said the landlord, “tha's a circumstance, ain't it?” He seemed to be appealing to the others about him, for there was a murmur which amounted to agreement that it was a circumstance. “Why, I'm reckonin' you're near the right track. Eh? Why, Major Sandfo'd--You know him?” “Ho.” “Eh? Where'd you come from? Major Sandfo'd, Sandfo'd Plantation. He rode th'ough here las 'night; said your men came up by the canal an' got loose below his place somewhere an' mos' bu'nt up the canal boat. Eh? He said he thought he saw someone on the road, but mought a' been wrong, 'cause he met his niggers comin' f'om their-meetin', an' they tol' him nobody had passed. Niggers mought lie. Eh? But he didn' find 'em, if he saw 'em. But they came by the canal. Major said so. Don' you know him?” They all went up the path together making various comments, but the last I heard of Gerry's voice was when he said: “Fetches us inside ten miles, don' it? Might a took the fork to Po'tsmouth. But you better watch your boats, landlo'd.” Someone else said: “Hot work down the river,” meaning the cannonading. The cannonading kept up its beat and thrill all through the afternoon. It was the 8th of March. We did not know anything peculiar about the 8th of March. There was an iron-sided thing careering around the James River the while, and eating up tall ships, and feeling much too comfortable over it. We were thinking about Gerry, and the landlord, and the boats. Towards dusk someone came stamping and puffing in the bushes, and we made out that he was come to hide the oars back among the brakes and leaves. We argued it must be the landlord, who seemed to be fat and short of wind, as well as deaf. We waited again a long time. Calhoun rose once and peered about, but lay down again and said there was still a light at the hotel. At last everything was dark and silent, so far as we could make out. We crept along till we found the oars, thrust here and there among the brakes, and took four of them, and so out into the starlight on the beach. I stepped into a boat, and Calhoun shoved the prow. But we had surely made a noise--some unnoticed clatter of oars--for the feet of men were coming now, thumping and stamping down the path. Calhoun shoved and leaped in, and we shot out over the shallow. But one of the men ran across the strip of beach into the water and caught the prow; and Calhoun thrust with his oar handle, so that he fell over and made a splash; and we got the oars in and rowed away.