He nodded his head in silence, but did not remove his eyes from off the countenance of his beloved, whose deadly pale temples he bathed with the cool water of the stream.
"But we're fast aground!" exclaimed Schwarz.
"Wet feet won't hurt us much," Helldorf interrupted him, and jumped overboard at once to shove the boat afloat again. Schwarz quickly followed his example; in a few seconds they felt the boat give way to their efforts, and soon it rocked freely and merrily again in deeper water.
The men now jumped in, and whilst they vigorously plied the long oars, Werner took hold of the tiller with his left hand, while with his right he supported his beloved. The well-modelled boat glided with the speed of an arrow towards the Eastern shore once more.
But there, meanwhile, things had proceeded wildly and confusedly enough. Wolfgang and Herbold, throwing themselves from their horses, had seized the two traitors, who were struggling with each other; but the mulatto would certainly have escaped from the firm grasp of Herbold, for, quick as lightning, he drew a small knife from his girdle, from the use of which the doctor had hitherto prevented him, and stuck it into the shoulder of the German, who instantly let go his hold in alarm; but Pastor Hehrmann, although he shrank from shooting a fellow-being, even though as vile a criminal as he who stood before him, yet could not help giving some vent to his just rage, and, swinging round his weapon quickly, he struck, with its butt end, the hard-sculled son of Ethiopia, with such good will, on the head, that the stock broke in two, and the mulatto was doubled up without speech or movement. In the next moment, he, as well as Normann, whom Wolfgang held with an iron grasp, were bound so fast that they could not budge. Pastor Hehrmann had, in the meantime, discovered his poor younger child lying on the ground, almost lifeless with anxiety and dread; he loosened her bands, and pressed her affectionately to his bosom, when the report of Von Schwanthal's shot turned their attention in that direction. They now made out both boats in the moonlight, but all of them remained in uncertainty, for who in the world could the pursuers be, if the first boat contained the fugitive and his booty. Louisa increased their doubts by stating that the American was the only one now left of the treacherous band, and the Germans could not imagine where the other boat came from. Had Providence sent it to save the poor innocent girl from the hands of her kidnapper, or did it only bear away others of his rascally accomplices, who, perhaps, had been lying here in ambuscade to cover the traitor's flight?
The prisoners were required to give them some explanation; but, however ready the mulatto might be to tell all that he knew, in the hope of saving his dark skin, yet he was compelled to confess that the second boat was unknown to him, and certainly did not belong to their party. This was the only circumstance which left the miserable father a glimmer of hope, although he could not conceive who the men might be who had hastened to the salvation of his child, so unexpectedly, and at so critical a moment. He could now only pray that Heaven might prosper their good work; and, with folded hands, and with his sobbing daughter leaning on his breast, the poor unhappy man stood and gazed, fixed and motionless, out into the silent surface of the stream, as though he would have penetrated the obscurity which shrouded it.
Normann and the mulatto lay firmly bound beneath a tree, and Von Schwanthal stood beside them, with his gun again loaded and cocked; but Herbold pulled off his coat, and was just endeavouring, by the faint light of the moon, to examine the wound which he had received from the steel of the mulatto, when they heard the rustling of the bushes, and the younger Siebert, Schmidt, and an Alsatian, the former armed with a double-barrelled gun, and the other two carrying formidable bludgeons in their fists, rushed towards them. They were soon informed of the state of affairs, and the clubmen were turned into watchers of the prisoners, whilst Siebert laid down his weapon, and looked at Herbold's wound; it proved altogether free from danger; the uncertain thrust had but grazed the shoulder and torn the skin; a linen handkerchief was bound over it, and there was nothing more to be feared from it.
It was then that Pastor Hehrmann, who had never turned away his eyes from the river, suddenly exclaimed, as he pointed, with his left arm outstretched, down the stream—
"Did you hear nothing? was not that a sound like an oar creaking against the hard wood of a boat's side?"
All listened, and for some seconds absolute silence ensued, then it sounded distinctly across the water. All heard, at measured intervals, the regular working of a pair of oars, but they still remained in uncertainty whether the boat to which they belonged was going down the stream, or whether it was returning. After a quarter of an hour of the most exciting and painful expectation, Herbold first discerned a dark point in the lighter surface of the water, and soon after, every moment more distinctly, the outline of a boat became visible, ploughing the stream, and, it could no longer be doubted, making for the eastern shore. Now the separate figures of those in it might be distinguished—there were three of them—two rowed, and one was at the tiller—but what was that? Was there not something white lying in the stern? Something now moved in the boat, a white handkerchief was waved:—