His attention was thus drawn to the direction in which the shot was fired, and to his astonishment and alarm, he just discerned, in the dim light of the moon, the dark shadow of a second boat gliding on, which evidently must be following him. Although he could not account, in the first place, where this boat had come from, as the mulatto had found none thereabouts, or, secondly, why his enemies should fire upon it, yet, he did not, for a moment, hesitate in concluding it to contain, as it really did, _pursuers_; and his sole aim now was to reach the opposite shore before it. Once there with his prize, he could, under the dark shadow of the woods, either give them the slip, with his boat even, or else easily carry his prize into the thicket, where pursuit would be useless. So, with his face turned to the dark spot, from which the flashing light of the oars, as they were lifted out of the water, alone announced the activity with which those in it were striving after their object, he himself pulled away lustily, and shaped his course, so as to give way a little to the stream, not exactly across, but rather endeavouring to maintain his advantage, as he still thought it possible to escape them by superior speed. But he was soon undeceived, for although the pirogue was unquestionably clumsier in the water than the excellently modelled boat, yet the latter was not adapted to be rowed by one person: the tholes lay opposite separate seats, the one more forward than the other, and the working of both at the same time was highly inconvenient. Turner, who knew how to scull, might, it is true, have easily got his boat down stream in that way, but he could not have made, in that fashion, so much way as the pirogue, and, he was consequently obliged for his own safety to choose the less convenient but more advantageous mode. Still, the pursuers gained upon him, and he was obliged to turn the head of his boat more towards the stream, in order to reach the opposite shore as soon as possible. But this movement, which did not pass unnoticed by Helldorf, only redoubled the zeal of the Germans, and the steersman warned the rowers several times, not to pull too violently, lest they should break one of their oars, a loss which could not have been made good.