“There he goes! There he goes!”
The whole posse swept on down the hill. Below, halfway to the evergreens, Tony was racing in full view. He cleared the rough hillside in flying bounds, nimble as a goat. By slipping through the house he had gained such a screen for his start, that now, with fifty yards to spare, he dove headfirst into the cedars, and disappeared.
Habakkuk’s men plunged after—Miles among the foremost—and, lashing each other with springy branches as they fought through, swung up river along the shore. The sailor thundered across the gully bridge, clattered over the quarter-deck, and passed at once out of earshot. Running their hardest, they caught neither sight nor sound. Then suddenly, from the shore below, a man hallooed. The roar of a gun shattered the early morning stillness, echoed along rocks and river. Miles and the others breasted the lower bushes on the headland, in time to see, against the white side of the stunted obelisk ahead, a flying figure spring up, wrench open the door, slip through, and slam it shut.
Round the next bend they nearly fell over a man stooping in the path. He rose—a young giant with a shock of sun-bleached hair, who grinned foolishly at Habakkuk.
“Nigh winged ’im, pa,” he chuckled. “Thought I hed, but don’t see no blood.”
“Ye brimston’ w’elp!” cried his father bitterly. “Who wants to see any?”
“W’elp, hey?” retorted Lazy-Hab, serene as an ox. “Who else was a-watchin’ the shore? He woulden’ ’a’ run inland. Stood to reason.” He blew the smoke from his gun-barrel, and added proudly: “All is, ’twas me doubled ’im. We got ’im now, tighter ’n pitch.”
As they drew near, no sound came from the little tower. The sailor had gained, at least, the high advantage of being neither heard nor seen. Halting, the men waited in uneasy silence,—so uneasy, that they began to scatter behind firs and boulders. Old-Hab stood in the open, negligently, but with a face more weazened than ever.
“Inside there!” he called, in a doubtful tone. “The’ ’s been fogo enough, fer one mornin’. Master fogo. Better come out and make it no worse. We don’t hanker fer no more shootin’.”
“More you’ll get, if you try to rush me.” Tony’s voice rang hollow within the walls. “I’m better at it, too, than that young red-headed savage, there.” He paused. “I tell you. There’s just one way out o’ this nonsense. Send Miles Bissant in here. I can trust him. We’ll splice things up. Fair play, now, and flag o’ truce, mind you! Him alone, or I’ll—”