The fugitives had not gone twenty yards before they discovered that the great clumps of reeds were no real protection; for the ground was so marshy that the only safe road was the tracking-path beside the river. Already they were surrounded by mud and water. The soldiers counted on their certain reappearance when they would begin their shooting.
It was the big fellow with the iron-pronged stick who explained this to them all in a guttural whisper, when they reached the end of the solid ground and stood in an irresolute group. Some wild-fowl rising almost from under their feet with a screech startled them all so badly that they turned deadly pale.
"A pretty dilemma!" exclaimed one of the wool-merchants in a hoarse whisper. "We cannot advance; we dare not retreat. And if we remain here too long, in the end the soldiers will find another boat to carry them across and exact vengeance, or perhaps fire chance shots, hoping to bring us down. Far better had we never moved."
But Wang the Ninth was not idle. He had stripped off his shoes and his trousers and had commenced wading in a new direction. Soon he was lost to sight, even his splashing becoming inaudible. But after a long wait he reappeared, forcing his way through the reeds from a different direction.
"I have found a bank of dry land. How far it extends I have not learnt, but if all follow it may be that we can reach safety."
There was nothing to do but to imitate his example, and soon all were splashing through the mud and water to where he awaited them. A half-submerged bank of earth, which may have been a forgotten dyke, stretched away through the reeds, and although it soon narrowed down to a path just broad enough to walk on, it led them far away from the river—straight to the south.
Their spirits rose so rapidly as they progressed that now they began to talk almost gaily.
"It is a reed-cutters' path, that is absolutely certain," asserted Wang the Ninth. "Soon we must reach a village, for this is an important trade and I know well how this business is carried on."
"This boy is right," agreed the man with the iron-pronged stick. "Certainly he is right: there is already smoke from some chimney."
It was even as he said. Soon from out of the dense reeds they heard the sound of cries and a scurrying of feet.