Diada snatched up a number of the javelins, ran off the point of land, and trotted down the edge of the lake toward the river.
“Leave your horses and follow her, men!” Flournoy ordered.
Four hundred men sprang to the ground, spread out in a long line like a fish-seine and went plunging across the marsh in pursuit of the fleeing woman. The grass was waist high, dead and dry as dust, but it offered no places for concealment, and Diada’s tall form was easily kept in sight.
At intervals the woman turned and hurled a javelin at the posse, but they were careful to stay out of danger.
In a little while the men noticed that Diada had begun to show signs of exhaustion. She was traveling more slowly, stopping now and then to catch her breath, and moving forward with a more pronounced stoop to her mighty shoulders.
She had eaten nothing for two days, had had no rest or sleep, and was now on the last lap of a twelve-mile run at full-speed!
Finally she slowed down to a walk, and the walk became a sort of stumble. She still carried a few of her javelins, and it was evident that she was now dependent upon them to keep her pursuers at a distance, while both she and they realized that she was now in the center of a prairie of marsh grass where she could not supply herself with new weapons when those she possessed were exhausted.
Something of the pathos of the situation dawned upon the men, both white and black, and they became silent, eyes strained toward the weakening, staggering quarry, so soon to fall into their hands.
For twenty minutes the silence was unbroken except for the swish of the marsh grass as the men waded through it. Far across the prairie could be seen the levee of the Mississippi River.
Suddenly the silence was broken by the long, dear, musical whistle of a boat upon the river.