Why, come to think of it, Blackfriar's Wharf, last night, I landed there, And--no, by God!--Raleigh is not himself, The tide will never serve beyond Gravesend. It is a trap! Come on! We'll follow them! Quick! To the river side!"-- We reached the wharf Only to see their wherry, a small black cloud Dwindling far down that running silver road. Ben touched my arm. "Look there," he said, pointing up-stream. The moon Glanced on a cluster of pikes, like silver thorns, Three hundred yards away, a little troop Of weaponed men, embarking hurriedly. Their great black wherry clumsily swung about, Then, with twelve oars for legs, came striding down, An armoured beetle on the glittering trail Of some small victim. Just below our wharf A little dinghy waddled. Ben cut the painter, and without one word Drew her up crackling thro' the lapping water, Motioned me to the tiller, thrust her off, And, pulling with one oar, backing with the other, Swirled her round and down, hard on the track Of Raleigh. Ben was an old man now but tough, O tough as a buccaneer. We distanced them. His oar blades drove the silver boiling back. By Broken Wharf the beetle was a speck. It dwindled by Queen Hythe and the Three Cranes. By Bellyn's Gate we had left it, out of sight. By Custom House and Galley Keye we shot Thro' silver all the way, without one glimpse Of Raleigh. Then a dreadful shadow fell And over us the Tower of London rose Like ebony; and, on the glittering reach Beyond it, I could see the small black cloud That carried the great old seaman slowly down Between the dark shores whence in happier years The throng had cheered his golden galleons out, And watched his proud sails filling for Cathay. There, as through lead, we dragged by Traitor's Gate, There, in the darkness, under the Bloody Tower, There, on the very verge of victory, Ben gasped and dropped his oars. "Take one and row," he said, "my arms are numbed. We'll overtake him yet!" I clambered past him, And took the bow oar. Once, as the pace flagged, Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coarse lips, "Hard!"-- And blood and fire ran through my veins again, For half a minute more. Yet we fell back. Our course was crooked now. And suddenly A grim black speck began to grow behind us, Grow like the threat of death upon old age. Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake, That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars All well together now.