They went down to the wharf at the foot of the garden. A word to the boat-master, and, presently, the Governor's barge shot out, manned by eight negroes, in the red and gray of his Excellency's colors. Miss Stirling bade the others aboard, and herself took the tiller. "Straight away!" she ordered. The blacks bent to their work, while the young ladies settled back among the cushions, under the awning, and gossiped. Presently, when the waves of the Bay began to roll, the barge was put about and headed up the Severn. They were just opposite the Governor's grounds, when a boat, running with astonishing swiftness, rushed by them, a hundred yards away. It was an Indian canoe, fitted with a keel, two leg o' mutton sails and a jib, and seemed fairly to skim the water. "George Marbury?" said Miss Stirling. "It is," said Miss Tyler; "and that boat will be the death of him, yet." "Wherefore?" asked Miss Stirling. "It seems to me to be uncommonly speedy. I shall ask him to take me in it, sometime." "If you are in search of death, it were well do so. It is swift--as swift and fast as any craft afloat, and, also, the most dangerous. The ease with which it can capsize is miraculous." "Then he is handling it marvelously well." "He handles it as well as any man could possibly do, but that is not enough--it, simply, gives him a little chance. Were he a poor sailor, he would not get twenty feet from the dock. Now, watch him; he is going to tack across our front. Let the wind veer, ever so little, and the chances are.... There, what did I tell you!" as, without a moment's warning, the canoe capsized. "Row for it, boys! row!" They found Marbury holding to the canoe with one hand, while, with the other, he was endeavoring to support Sir Edward Parkington, who, in the overturning, had been struck on the head and rendered unconscious. "It is nothing!" Marbury averred, when they were dragged aboard the barge. "Parkington has got a rap on the head, and he shipped a bit too much water, that's all. He will come out of it in a moment, if you women give him a chance--all he wants is air." "What do you suppose he would have wanted, if we had not been close by when you capsized?" inquired Miss Tyler. "I am not called upon to suppose," said Marbury, looking up, with a laugh, through his disheveled hair. "I am very well content as it is." "And you ought to be, sir!" said Miss Falconer, "to take Sir Edward out in such a crazy contraption." "He said he could swim," Marbury protested. "He offered to lay me five pistoles, he could out-swim me across the Severn." Just then Sir Edward opened his eyes, stared wildly around, and struggled weakly to arise. "Where am I?" he gasped; "where am I?" "In the Governor's barge," said Marbury. "Lie still." Sir Edward's eyes closed; then, they opened again. "I remember," he said, more strongly. "We overturned, and something struck me. What are we doing in the Governor's barge?"