They were the landlord and two other men. The two others fell to shouting in the landlord's ear, “Oars! oars!” and all three ran into the bushes. We had gotten away so far that the shore was too dim to see, but I thought they had given up. Calhoun listened and heard their oarlocks. So we fell to, and pulled till my ears sang and my arms felt wooden, north by west, down the river, which was there broad like a bay; and we kept this pace some two miles, and were near the island they call Craney Island, where were Confederate batteries. They were good watermen. They out-rowed us fairly, drew nearer and nearer till I could see that there were two in the stem with an oar apiece, and the third man pulling two oars. “They've got no guns,” said Calhoun. “They'd have drawn on us.” But I only gasped and grunted for answer. Calhoun stopped rowing. “Will you fight, Bennie?” There was almost a laugh in his voice, as if he were happy, like a little boy thinking of a fine new game. And somehow I was glad too, and cried, “Yes!” feeling I would rather fight the Confederate batteries than pull through another half-hour so desperately. “Turn out in the river then. Let's have room.” And so, when they caught us, we were near the middle of the river and far away from either shore. “Hoi!” said the one in the prow. “Ye would, would ye!” He leaned over to catch the stern of our boat. I stood up and swung my oar behind. “Go easy, sonny,” said one of those in the stem. “You're wo'th money, wo'th money. Look out there!” I brought the oar down with a flat slap on the first man's head, who pitched into the water, hitting our boat with his shoulder. And Calhoun pulled hard and sudden, so that I fell forward across my oar, and scrambled up very bewildered. The other boat had swung around with the shove of the man who went over, for he came up away from it. Either he could not swim or had lost his head with the blow, for he cried out and sank again: and one from the stem, but not the landlord, dove in, while the landlord howled words at us that had no sense except to express anger, which they did very well. We pulled away. I seemed to make out from the sounds that they were lifting the half-drowned man aboard, but we saw no more of them. Someone on Craney Island fired his gun off. It sounded very sharp and near. There was a light-boat ahead, marking the channel, and someone there who shouted; but we turned aside, and went far over to the right till we touched the reeds along the eastern shore, and so came out into the James. There followed a silent, dogged, weary space of time--of rowing and resting, and rowing again--dark water slapping the boat sides, and the same thing on and on. The moon rose late, and when there should have been dawn, came a mist instead, which was worse than the night, for now we might row past the ships and not see them, whereas in the dark we should have seen the lights.