It was red.
Scarcely had he seen this than other figures appeared—red-coated figures. They stood up. Pierre could no longer doubt. They were English soldiers. Even as he looked they began to leap out from the boat, and run towards him. As he looked his eyes caught sight of something beyond—something white—like a long, low, white wall; and from that far distance there arose a low, droning sound, which struck a strange terror into his soul.
In a moment he roused his brother. Paul stood up, and stared in the direction where Pierre was pointing. He saw the wide, flat river bed uncovered. He saw the red-coated English soldiers.
Pierre looked all around to find the best place for refuge.
On his right there projected a wooded cliff, its sides rising precipitously for fifty or sixty feet, and its summit covered with fir trees. This was the nearest land. If they ran towards this they might get out of sight of their pursuers in a few minutes, and plunge into the woods at a place where the cliff ended and the land sloped gradually down. To this place he directed Paul’s attention; and then calling upon him to follow, he leaped from the boat. Paul followed. The two brothers ran with their utmost speed over the treacherous mud flats towards the shore behind the point.
Up the channel, over the same treacherous mud flats, came their pursuers, who, at this unexpected sight of their prey, seemed to be filled with fresh fury. Seeing that prey about to escape, they fired after them. Report after report sounded through the air and echoed along the shore.
Six shots were thus fired, and then, as the last echo died out, there arose another sound. It was that low, droning sound which had come to Pierre’s ears before he left the boat but the sound was louder, and deeper, and nearer, and more dreadful. It was a sound of wrath. It was the voice of many waters! It was the sound of a pursuer more terrible than man—the sound of the pitiless march of innumerable waves.
The cliff rose overhead. They had reached it; but before they passed behind it they turned one glance at their pursuers. In that one glance a sight revealed itself which was never forgotten.
Far down arose a wall of white foam, formed by the advancing tidal wave of the Bay of Fundy—a dread mass of surging billows, rolling up the channel, extending all the way across. At the moment when they looked it had caught the boat and overwhelmed it, and then, in hungry fury, advanced towards the soldiers.
They had heard it! They had seen it—that terrible pursuer, the tremendous, the inevitable! They stood still in horror. Escape was impossible. On came the wave. Even the fugitives stood for a moment overwhelmed with the horror of that spectacle.