"Yes."
"Fire on him!"
Several muskets were fired, and had not the Vermonter been an excellent swimmer he would have been killed. But Eben dived and swam under the water a great distance, and the bullets were deflected by the water.
A boat was lowered and the stoutest sailors, with four marines, manned it.
"Ten pounds to the man who kills him," said the captain, "and twenty for the man who brings him in alive."
There was a stimulus in the offer of reward, although the Englishmen, every one of them, would have gloried in the chase and in hunting the boy to his death without even the chance of a reward.
Eben saw the boat coming after him, and he knew that he was in a race for life.
He was not daunted.
He watched the boat skim through the moonlit water, and he floated for some little distance to ascertain whether he was seen.
Assured of that, he laughed quietly to himself over the chase he would give them.