"Well, you see, the river was pretty full, and the wind had been light for some time, and there warn't no way of making against the main stream; I had waited for three weeks, and me and my mates got sick of it. We had a cargo which was due up the river, and we made up our minds at last that we would push on and take our chance. We had eight negroes, all strong active fellows, armed with cutlasses and old ship muskets, and we four whites had rifles and pistols. We allowed we could make a good fight of it, so we agreed as we would go up the back-waters, so managing as to be able to get out into the stream every night and anchor thar. We shifted the cargo a bit, so as to pile it up round the sides, stowing the rice-bags so as to make a sort of breastwork; then off we started. "For some days we got along well; the blacks poled thar best, and every evening we just hit a pint where we could go out into the stream agin. Two or three times we fancied we war watched, for we heard the snapping of twigs, and sounds in the thick swamp jungle ahead; but I reckon they thowt better of it when they saw two rifle-barrels peeping out from the sacks on each side, and saw we war ready for a tussle. But one day--it wasn't very far from the pint where we mended up that boat the other day--we war later than usual; the stream war stronger than we reckoned on, we had run aground two or three times on the mud, and it war getting dark, and we had two miles yet before we got to a place where we could get out into the river. The blacks war working thar hardest; it didn't need no words from us to keep 'em at it, for they knew as well as we did what was the danger, and the boat just flew along that narrow channel." "We war on the watch, with our eyes fixed on the bank, and our ears pretty wide open to catch any sound ahead. All of a sudden a gun was fired close alongside. The blacks gave a yell, and would have jumped down into shelter, only I shouted, 'Stick to your poles, men; if you lose them we are done for; there's no danger, it's only one man.' So on we went again, for, luckily, no one was hit. 'That's a signal,' Bill, says I to one of my mates; 'I reckon we shall have trouble afore we are out of this.' On we went, flying between the bushes, which warn't fifteen yards apart. Not a sound was heard but the panting of the blacks, the splash of their poles in the water, and a sort of sighing noise behind, as the ripples the boat made as she glided along rustled among the boughs which dipped down into the stream.