Deakin sent them after line, and got the powder, weapons and food all firmly lashed inside roll after roll of the tarpaulin. Then the four men flung to work at the spars and wreckage, and in ten minutes accomplished more than the green hands with Smithsend on the poop could effect in an hour’s time. They were seasoned men, knowing what fate faced them unless they gripped at the forelock of destiny--therefore they grasped hard and sure, without pity. They got the little raft into the water, loaded their precious burden aboard, and caught hold of the lines on each side. She floated high. Next moment men were around them, pleading, yelling, fighting for a shred of the visible hope. Moses Deakin, towering above them with a jagged splinter of rail of his hand, struck them down. His voice boomed, and they were off, all four men swimming, drifting inshore with the wind and current. Still other men came clustering about, dark figures pouring out of the broken wreck as ants pour forth from a burning log. Wounded men, company servants and seamen, one or two Frenchmen; Deakin and his men silently watched them come, then struck out grimly and mercilessly, beat off the hapless refugees, kept their raft ever pushing ahead over the shallows, leaving in their wake a mournful wail of despairing voices that followed them down the wind. The four quickly overtook and passed the first stragglers, resolutely shoved onward, pausing only to smite down one or two who sought the help of their float. Thus they had covered nearly a mile when Deakin uttered a relieved grunt. “Shoal! Down feet.” They let themselves down, found the water shoulder-high, presently only waist-high. At this level it remained for another two miles, and they dragged the float by the lines. Moses Deakin was in the lead, bent over, straining at the ropes with his immense strength, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the shore. Soon this came into sight ahead, the low ground dark with trees. In twenty minutes the four men were carrying their burdens up from the water, staggering through snow and shore ice up to the line of trees, where they sank down in absolute exhaustion. “No time to waste here,” panted the Bostonnais, gazing into the storm and wiping the spray from his face, his great beard heaving above his chest. “We’re seven or eight leagues east o’ Nelson. No use goin’ west--such o’ them fools as gets ashore will all head that way.” “Then where the devil do we head for--New Severn?” demanded one of the three rogues, ironically. “Ay, New Severn.” “The English company hath a gallows there, master.” Deakin glared from bloodshot eyes at the objector. Then, realizing the need for patience, he stooped and drew with his finger in the sand a rough right angle, indicating the line of the shore to the west.