“Is there no end to this wretched river?” he cried, half aloud; and he gave his foot an impatient stamp, which started the men afresh just as they had slackened their efforts, and once more they went on toiling along the narrow, winding stream, the tortuous way seeming to grow more intricate minute by minute, and fortunately for them, as their little boat skimmed round the turns, while the prahu’s passage was ponderous and slow.
But every now and then some straight piece of the river would give the enemy his chance, and the rowers forced the prahu along, so that she gained ground.
There was no mistaking it, and the doctor’s fingers tightened upon his gun, as he saw how rapidly his pursuers were gaining; while his own men were becoming terribly jaded by their tremendous efforts, and moment by moment their strokes were losing force.
Worse still, as he gazed back, he could see that something was going on in the bows of the prahu, and he needed no telling what it was—they were again loading and training their heavy gun; and “if,” the doctor thought, “they wing us now, our chances are gone!”
It was not a pleasant thing to do, to stand there offering himself as it were for a target to the next shot; but this did not occur to the doctor, who kept his ground, and the next moment there was a puff of white smoke from the prahu’s side.
Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.
Blind as a Mole—is said to be.
“Poor Perowne seems nearly heartbroken,” said the Resident, as they went down the path; and then bitterly, the words slipping out, incidental upon one or two remarks of Hilton’s—“He seems to suffer more than you.”