I had been none too quick. A faint red gleam began to show through the mist, and having some notion of what the enemy might be about, I slightly enlarged the aperture of a gaping seam, and looked toward the embankment. A fire had been kindled, and the man who had lighted it stood full in the glare of it. As I had supposed, the man was Vliet. He had a gun hanging at his back and a sling in his hand. Doubtless he had seen my departure from Sandtoft, pulled up the sluice-gate to let off the water, and followed me along the embankment. Chance had favoured him by stranding me on a spot from which I could not move. He had only to knock my boat to pieces, or even to make it unfloatable, and my fate was sealed. He could return to close the sluice, and in a few hours the water would cover both the boat and me. That was pretty safe, if he did no more than smash the boat. He would try to do more than that, I had no doubt. I could do nothing. To attempt to crawl over the slime would be to seek death. I must stick to the boat as long as the planks held together, hiding myself, if possible, and making no sound. He might imagine that I had escaped, or that I was dead, if I made no sign. As I watched his doings, he gave me a ray of hope. He lifted a bottle to his mouth, and he did not tilt it high. How fervently I hoped that he had enough to get drunk on! His next move showed he was not by any means drunk at present. He walked away from the fire, often stopping down, as I supposed, to pick up stones. He evidently meant to spare powder and shot as long as he could, and to do his work as silently as possible. When he came back to the fire, he lighted a torch and descended the embankment, looking carefully, at the soil of the fen, as if he sought to get nearer to the boat, but he had too much prudence to venture. Then he ascended the bank and resumed his sling. He had found where the boat lay, for he managed to hit about once in three times. His aim was so bad that it would have been laughable under other circumstances, but I had no inclination to laugh, as plank after plank cracked and started. I turned over, and lay with my back to him, grinding my teeth with rage to be so ignominiously stoned and so utterly helpless. At length, perhaps after an hour of continuous firing, came a pause, and I turned over to look at my enemy. It was only too easy to see him through gaping seams and holes broken in the planking. He sat between the fire and me, so that his every movement was clearly discernible. If I had had a gun I could have shot him wherever I chose. He rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand, as if it ached with his exercise. Then he drank from his bottle, tilting it higher this time. He sat so long that I began to hope he imagined he had made an end of me; but by-and-by he rose to his feet, took his gun in hand, and prepared to fire. I rolled to the very edge of the