"The devil I am!" lied Dick. "Only slipped on the snow. You save those papers, or all my work will go for naught! I'll get my wind and follow! Go, Tom! The papers first, don't you understand? I'll have my breath before those fellows can nab me!" And Dick raised one knee, as if already about to rise. "Vera weel, lad!" said old Tom, compliantly, and plunged forward to round the point of Cape Diamond and follow the shore up the river. The sight of his gaunt figure, swiftly receding in the snow and night, between river and cliffs, was the last glimpse Dick had of Tom, the piper's son, for many a long day. Dick was not entirely sure he might not indeed elude the two soldiers from the stockade, and overtake Tom. He got up and found he could proceed limpingly. But the soldiers, only a few yards from him when he rose, shortened the intervening distance so speedily that Dick saw they must catch him in a few seconds. He made to grasp his hunting-knife. It was gone, having been displaced from his belt at some contact with the cliff in his descent. The idea of capture now became intolerable to him. A kind of madness arose in him, making him determined, at any cost, not to fall into the hands of the two enemies at his heels. When he felt himself almost within grasp of the foremost, he wheeled aside, and plunged head foremost into the swift, icy current of the St. Lawrence. While the water gurgled in his ears, he jubilantly pictured to himself the two men standing baffled on the shore and cursing the luck that had robbed them of their prey. Soon rising to the surface, Dick struck out at random, using both arms and the unwounded leg. Whither would this swim in the dark lead him? He scarcely cared, now that he had accomplished his two missions; his one wish was that it should not diminish his triumph by delivering him up eventually to the foe. All at once something black loomed up before him,--a vessel whose lights he had not taken to be so near, and whose size he could not immediately make out. As he turned to swim away from it, he heard a voice call out immediately over him, "Man in the river!" He pulled away, but with a constantly weakening stroke. He heard other cries, became vaguely aware that a boat was being sent after him, and presently, when strength and sense were about deserting him, he felt himself caught by the back of his hunting-shirt and drawn, by several hands, from the water to the boat.