His words seemed to give the men fresh strength, and they forced the sampan on with renewed force. The water rattled and surged beneath her bows, and so good was the speed they now made, that in another minute they would have been out of sight, when a second shot from the prahu’s gun came skipping along, and this time aimed so well, or so cleverly winged by fate, that it struck the flying boat, cutting a great piece out of her gunwale.
“Pooh! that’s nothing. Never mind the shot!” cried the doctor, coolly. “I’ll wager a new silk sarong, to be fought for by gamecocks, that they could not do that again. Dip your paddles deep, my lads; paddle away, and we’ll soon leave them far enough behind.”
The bend of the river that they had turned gave them some slight chance of escape, and the men worked better and with less display of nervous hesitation. Bank and trees shut them now from the sight of the marksmen on board the prahu, and there is less difficulty in toiling at the paddle when you know that no one is taking careful aim at your back.
The moment they were out of sight of the prahu’s crew the doctor stood up in the boat, one moment urging on the men, the next searching the shores for some satisfactory hiding-place—some inlet or opening among the trees into which the sampan might be thrust with some little chance of its escaping the keen eyes of their pursuers, who would be pretty well on the alert for such a trick as this. There were trees overhanging the stream in plenty, but as far as he could see the foliage was not sufficiently dense to be trusted at a time like this; and feeling at last that their only chance of safety was by making for and reaching the main river, he kept on encouraging the men, and in the pauses speaking words of comfort to Helen Perowne.
She lay back utterly prostrate, but turned her eyes to the doctor with an imploring gaze that he read easily enough, interpreting it to mean—“Save me from these wretches, or shoot me sooner than I shall fall into their hands!”
“I mean to save you, my dear,” he said to himself; but all the same, he examined the cartridges in his gun, and his fingers played with the trigger, as he listened intently to the sounds of pursuit.
“I’d give something for this to be the cutter of a frigate, well manned with jacks and with half a dozen of our red-coats in the stern sheets. I don’t think we should be showing them how fast we could run away at a time like this. But one must show them a little strategy sometimes.”
He looked back, but they were still well out of sight of the prahu, the heavy beat of whose oars seemed to come from close behind the trees, though it was still some distance away.
He scanned this bank—the other bank—but now the trees seemed thinner, and the chances of hiding successfully to grow less; and for a moment something like despair crept into the doctor’s heart.
But he was too well used to emergencies to fail at critical moments; and, bracing himself up, the momentary despairing feeling was gone.