I pulled slowly awhile to make sure of being beyond their reach before stopping to know what hurt had been taken by us. We could not see, for our lantern had burned out, or been smothered in the folds in which Bess had enwrapped it. Anna, who sat nearest me, affirmed she had suffered nothing worse than a few bruises; the doctor had a wound in the left shoulder, which was bleeding freely, he said; Martha had been struck on the head with a stone, but now felt better; Bess assured me she had no serious injury, which I could scarce believe, exposed as she had been. Well it was for the rest of us that she had risked herself so boldly. Twice, in spite of the ready pole, some of our pursuers had swum out from the bank to lay hold of our craft, and had gone under with cracked crowns. All would have been over with us if they had clutched the gunnel. Something of this I was saying, when Bess cried, "Cease rowing a moment." As she spoke, a hoarse sound of cheering came to our ears, and as it died away we caught a faint noise of dipping oars, which grew more distinct while we listened. "Some of them are following in a boat," said Bess. "Hand me your pistols, and row on." "Look to the priming," said I, as I passed the weapons and bent again to the oars. There could be no going fast, for the stream twisted about sharply at this part, and the darkness was thickened by alders and willows which leaned over the water, so that I had to feel my way slowly, lest I ran the boat aground. Happily, I knew every bend and shallow well, having been out on the stream duck-shooting scores of times, though never in such gloom as now. My hope was that our pursuers might be less familiar with its windings, in which case they might stick on a shoal, or foul a bush long enough to give me time to cross a "broad," which lay a little ahead. Out on open water, a boat rowed by three or four men would be sure to overtake us, unless we had a long start of them; but if I could cross the "broad" before they came up with us, I had some hope of winning the race; for the remainder of the stream twisted about in a manner full of difficulty to those who did not thoroughly know its course. Just as the channel widened, and I was revolving in my mind by what dodge I might elude our pursuers, they broke out into loud curses, and I guessed what had happened to them. The stream forked a little way behind us, and one branch soon ran shallow over a bed of pebbles. If one pushed over this, one came to a bed of weeds which was quite impassable. Our pursuers, I imagined, had come to the shallow, and I hoped they would go forward. We could hear they were disputing and quarrelling. So I was assured of the long start I wanted, and pulled cheerily across the mere, rousing the waterfowl by thousands, to the astonishment of Anna, who had never heard such a thunderous flapping of wings and such a tumult of screaming, quacking, and cackling.