“Fly! fly!” cried Paul, “or we’re lost! It’s the English! They’ve burned all the settlement, and seized the people! They are carrying them away to another country as slaves! Father and mother are gone! I was a little late at the place, and managed to escape. But fly! fly! for they are scouring the country, and if they see us, we are lost!”
At this frightful intelligence Pierre’s first impulse was to join his father and mother, and suffer with them; but the impulse passed away, and the thought of the horrors of slavery and exile deterred him. Flight was now his only thought—flight instant and immediate. The boat’s head was turned, and Pierre now sought the bay as eagerly as a short time before he had sought the shore.
And now, as Pierre retraced his course, he soon perceived that he was discovered. Over the marshes a number of men came running. They were dressed in red coats, and by this, even when far away, they could easily be recognized as English soldiers. They gesticulated wildly towards him, and finally, on reaching the bank of the river, they discharged their muskets at the boat. But by that time the fugitives had passed beyond their reach, and the shots, though fast and furious, did no damage, but only urged them on to swifter flight, if possible; and to accomplish this, the two brothers seized the oars, and sought by rowing to make greater speed.
The pursuers stood for a time as though baffled, and then hurried away back to the rising ground.
“They’ll pursue us,” said Paul, gloomily.
“O, no,” said Pierre.
“They’ll pursue us,” said Paul once more, obstinately; “you don’t know their malignity. They will not let one of us escape. They have gone for a boat.”
Pierre said nothing. After what had occurred, how could he hope for any forbearance on the part of his enemies? There, as he sat rowing, appeared full before him the blackened fields of his father’s farm, the gaunt chimney that rose above the ruins of the house where he was born.
For some time the two brothers pulled at the oars, with their eyes fixed upon the desolated shore, speaking not a word, for the hearts of both were too full. Pierre did not seek as yet to know the particulars of the dread tragedy whose results Paul had already stated, nor did Paul care to say anything more about an event upon which he scarcely dared to think; so both pulled on in silence, until at length a cry from Paul startled his brother.
“They have a boat! They are chasing us;” he cried. “They are coming out of the creek!”