"What's the matter?" asked Normann, timidly.
"They are coming!" the mulatto suddenly whispered, and pointing, alarmed, upwards.
A glad ray of hope passed across the countenances of the unhappy captives. There was some sign of salvation from their awful danger; and Bertha cast a look of joyful gratitude towards the blue canopy of heaven.
But Turner, who, quickly as thought, perceived their only chance of remaining undiscovered, acted as promptly. He could no longer expect to get away on the opposite side, for he heard the approaching hoofs himself; and there, he must have fallen under the bullets of his enemies before he could climb up the steep bank. On the other hand, on the side whence the pursuers were approaching, the shore was bushy, and, as already mentioned, overhanging. Without betraying the fears which crept over himself therefore, by so much as the twinkling of an eyelash—even with the same cold smile upon his thin lips—he let the boat fall off into the current.
In the next second, he glided between and among some willow shoots which grew close to the water's edge, and were overhung by thick bushes, and there the boat lay, held by the strong arm of the mulatto, still and motionless.
At the same moment, some dry branches broke off above, and the leaves rustled—a rider bounded forward, heedless of the closely interwoven branches, and severing them with a sharp hunting-knife only when they actually stopped his passage, nearly to the edge of the bank, and, bending forward, gazed up and down the stream.
"Do you see nothing, Wolfgang?" the anxious voice of Pastor Hehrmann was now heard to ask—"can you discover nothing of my children?"
Bertha, hearing the voice of her father close above her, made a desperate exertion of strength to free her mouth, but Turner held her with an iron grasp, so that she was hindered from making any movement whatever; whilst Normann applied the same restraint to the younger sister, and in addition, pointed a knife at her breast. Although not a syllable escaped him in this action, yet his eyes betrayed the devil that was lurking within.
"Nothing!—nothing at all to be seen or heard!" said young Wolfgang, with a sigh. "And yet it appeared to me, just before we reached the bank, as though I heard the sound of an oar; but I must have deceived myself."
A contemptuous smile played round the corners of Turner's mouth.