Order after order came from the soft marshy land at the edge of the creek, mingled with shouts at the dogs, which were now loose, and barking and yelping as they ran here and there at the side of the water, where their splashing could be heard by those in the boat, which was being propelled slowly and cautiously by Mary, who knelt in the prow and thrust a pole she carried down in the mud.
The baying of the dogs as they kept making rushes through the canes gave the pursuers some clue as to where the fugitives would be; and from time to time, after a command given to the escaping men to surrender, a volley was fired, the bright flashes from the muskets cutting the darkness, and showing where their danger lay.
It was slow work for both parties, the pursuers having to force their way painfully through the tangled growth, while the heavily-laden boat had to be propelled through what was in places little more than liquid mud full of fibrous vegetation, and what had been but a light task to Mary when she was alone, proved to be almost beyond her strength with so heavy a load.
“Are you going right?” whispered Abel at last, for they were hardly moving, and it seemed to him that they were running right in among the growth that whispered and creaked against the boat.
“Yes; be patient,” was the stern reply.
“I can see them. They’re wading yonder in the mud up to their waists.”
“There they are,” came from apparently close at hand, and the dogs burst out more furiously than ever. “Now, then, you scoundrels, we can see you. Give up.”
“Faith, and it’s a cat he is,” whispered Dinny. “What a foine senthry he’d make for night duty!”
“Surrender!” shouted the same voice, “or we’ll blow you out of the water.”
“The ugly, yellow-faced divil!” muttered Dinny.