CHAPTER XXIX
THE CULVERT AND THE CORNFIELD.
All these delays gave Jack time, and time was what he needed just now.
It was not until the moment when, pretending to fall, he threw himself from the masonry of the culvert, that the idea occurred to him of resorting to a little trick which he had often practised in the water with Lion, for the amusement of his companions, and of playing the part of a drowning boy. The dog that usually rescued him could be dispensed with on this occasion; but the skill of the experienced swimmer might serve him.
He had seen the culvert whilst running towards the canal; and even then the thought had flashed through his mind that, if he could once get into it, pursuit might be baffled, and his capture delayed, for at least a little while. He did not, however, suppose that it would be possible to pass through and escape, against the chances of being met and taken on the other side.
But now he thought if he could make it appear that he was drowned in the pond, then time might be gained. So, after his first plunge, he came up once, in order to catch breath and give one glance at the situation, then turned in the water and sank. Fortunately the sun on the surface dazzled Sellick’s eyes, or he might have seen a suspicious movement of the boy’s hands, and the quiet gliding away of the boy’s body through the clear depths, towards the arched opening in the masonry.
When next Jack came to the surface, he found himself in what seemed a long, narrow gallery, nearly filled with water; a low, vaulted roof just above him, and an opening at each end through which shone the light of the sky. Drops from the clammy and dripping stones fell with slow, echoing plashes in the cavernous gloom, reminding him that he was under the canal; that the great, winding, watery thoroughfare, which he had travelled many a summer, and through which the lazy boats moved, was now over his head.
Accustomed to diving as he was, a plunge at the end of an exhausting race was not a good thing for the lungs; and Jack declares that he was never so nearly dead for want of breath, as when he rose to the surface in the culvert. For a minute or more it seemed quite impossible for him to make any exertion, beyond what was necessary to keep his nose above water. But there he stayed, just moving his feet and hands, while he filled his aching lungs with drafts of air, which made him rise and sink, and sent gentle undulations and ripples along the dark culvert walls.
The cries for help came to his ears, and inspired him with fresh courage: he knew that his stratagem had succeeded. He knew, too, that it would not be long before search would be made for him in the culvert, or at the other opening. “I must be moving!” he thought.
Swimming swiftly and silently under the low vault, he passed completely beneath the canal, and cautiously put his head out on the other side. Before him was the tranquil mill-race half filled with floating saw-logs, the saw-mill at the end of it, and a low, wild country of stumpy farms and wooded swamps beyond. Nobody in sight; but he could still hear excited voices on the other side of the canal embankments.
Gliding out of the culvert, he swam to the right bank of the race, which was there built up five or six feet from the ground, crawled over it, dropped down under it, and ran along beside it till he reached the mill. He heard the shrill shriek of filing saws as he passed, and knew that the sawyer was busy. Dodging between great piles of slabs and lumber, he kept on, and soon gained the shelter of a fringe of alders that bordered the onward-flowing mill-stream. That led him into a swampy piece of woods. And so it happened that, by the time Sellick and his companions scrambled from the deck of the wheat-boat upon the bridge at the Basin, and turned back to the culvert, the fugitive was nearly a mile away.