The knife was found, the rope cut, the negro free, all in much less time than we have taken for the narration; and hurrying the African with her, Frederica was soon again beside the person of her lover. To assist Brough in taking him upon his back, to help sustain the still partially insensible man in this position until he could be carried to the boat, was a work of quick resolve, which required, however, considerable time for performance. But patience and courage, when sustained by love, become wonderful powers; and Richard Coulter, whose moans increased with his increasing sensibility, was finally laid down in the bottom of the dug-out, his head resting in the lap of Frederica. The boat could hold no more. The faithful Brough, pushing her out into the stream, with his hand still resting on stern or gunwale, swam along with her, as she quietly floated with the currents. We have seen the narrow escape which the little vessel had as she rounded the headland below, just as Dunbar came down upon the beach. Had he been there when the canoe first began to round the point, it would have been easy to have captured the whole party, since the stream, somewhat narrow at this place, set in for the shore which the tories occupied, and a stout swimmer might have easily drawn the little argosy upon the banks. CHAPTER VII. To one familiar with the dense swamps that skirt the rivers through the alluvial bottom lands of the South, there will be no difficulty in comprehending the fact that a fugitive may find temporary security within half a mile of his enemy, even where his pursuers hunt for him in numbers. Thus it happened that, in taking to the river, our little corporal’s guard of patriots, under the direction of Elijah Fields, the worthy preacher, swimming their horses round a point of land on the opposite shore, sought shelter but a little distance below “Bear Island,” in a similar tract of swamp and forest, and almost within rifle-shot of their late retreat. They had no fear that their enemy would attempt, at that late hour, and after the long fatigue of their recent march and search, to cross the river in pursuit of them; and had they been wild enough to do so, it was equally easy to hide from search, or to fly from pursuit. Dunbar felt all this as sensibly as the fugitives; and with the conviction of his entire failure at “Bear Castle,” he gave up the game for the present. Meanwhile, the little barque of Frederica Sabb made its way down the river. She made her calculations on a just estimate of the probabilities in the situation of Coulter’s party, and was not deceived. As the boat swept over to the opposite shore, after rounding the point of land that lay between it and “Bear Castle,” it was hailed by Fields, for whom Brough had a ready answer. Some delay, the fruit of a proper caution, took place before our fugitives were properly sensible of the character of the stranger; but