Were one of them wounded the other would surely perish. They take to their oars again, and hastily round a little wooded point upon which the willows are just beginning to expand their leaves, forming a slight shelter. Suddenly grounding the skiff behind the screen of the thicket, they spring on shore, each carrying two guns, and crawl across the point in turn to catch the Spanish boat just as she rounds it. From this ambuscade their four arquebuses discharged within twenty feet of their pursuers, puts one dead over his rowlocks and two others desperately wounded. Saluted in this ferocious manner the Spaniards, with a cry of surprise and terror, turn their boat about down the river. “Not one of ’em must go back to send cavalry after us!” whispers Haring. “Then come on, and we’ll nail the other two,” answers Guy. Reloading their guns they fly to their shallop again, and after a desperate pull, overtake the Spaniards, who row for their lives, but are no match on the water for Gueux sailors. Two or three shots and one of Alva’s veterans cleft to the chin with battle axe, and the Spanish patrol boat floats down the river manned only by corpses. “That was fortunate,” says the Hollander. “There’s now no one to give the alarm. Until we pass the guard-house at Ouderkerk we’ll probably meet no Spanish troops. But they sometimes have a whole company there. We must get past it after darkness.” With this they turn about and keep on up the pretty little river, which flows with a quiet, sluggish current, and at five o’clock in the evening conceal themselves in a patch of willows, taking very good care that no one shall notice them. What peasants they have seen have fled from them. Here, not daring to kindle a fire, the two eat salt herring and oily bread convivially, and wait for approaching darkness. This comes deep and heavy over land and water; there is no moon this night. Haring and Guy, muffling their oars, row cautiously up the stream, and in half an hour see the lights of Ouderkerk. Then groping along upon the opposite shore, the Dutchman acting as pilot, and apparently knowing every sandbank in the stream, they would get past this place, which is only a small village, undiscovered, were it not for the barking of a few curs, which produces a challenge from the Spanish sentry on the river bank. Not answering this, the two bend to their oars as silently, but as strongly, as possible, and after a little the dogs cease barking, and the sentry resumes his beat, apparently thinking, as he has seen nothing or heard nothing, that nothing has passed him. In fact, after they are beyond the place, they discover by the yellings of the curs that the Spaniard is apparently kicking them for having aroused him.