I could see the waterman's boat behind me come through the Bridge, and guessed well enough that some other craft near it were joining in the pursuit. So I pulled desperately, and made my boat fly down the stream. Yet ever as I turned and looked ahead there was no sign of the _Misericorde_. Worse still, a flutter of breeze on my brow showed that the wind was already coming, and then, I knew I might row my arms off, and never catch her. The dogged waterman behind me still held on and seemed to be gaining. Little wonder if he did, for I had been rowing all night, and now my arms began to flag. Yet what was his stake on this race compared with mine? So away down the stream I pulled past Deptford, and the Queen's Palace at Greenwich (Heaven save her!) turning my looks now forward, now backward, and praying each minute for a sight of the _Misericorde_. A little past Greenwich I was near meeting my end; for, looking eagerly for a sight of my pursuers behind, I failed to perceive a boat crossing the river ahead of me; nor was it till my boat's nose struck her full in the side that I was aware of the obstacle. The man and woman in the boat (which seemed to be a floating pedlar's shop plying among the ships), swore at me roundly, and I had much ado to persuade them that no harm was done, and that if any one had a right to complain, I had. I was rowing on, to put an end to the parley, when my eye caught sight of a bundle of garments on the boat's poop. "Stay," cried I, "to show I bear you no malice, I will even make a purchase of you, if you have what I require." "Name it," said they, doubtfully. "Have you a cloak, warm enough and smart enough, to wrap my poor old mother in, when I take her on the water?" said I. "That have we," cried the woman, fumbling in the heap, "but 'tis more than you will pay." "How much?" I remanded. She said a half-angel; but when I too eagerly pulled out my mistress's purse to pay her, her eyes gleamed and she said she was mistaken, she had no cloak there for less than a gold angel. "Show it me," said I, coming alongside. It was what I wanted, yet I durst not say so. So I snatched it by force, and tossing the woman an angel, made off with my prize, leaving them amazed and swearing by all the heathen gods they had been robbed and left beggars.