"Why, mistress, an they make better speed than we, belike they'll catch us; but, an we make better speed than they, belike they'll not catch us," growled Tooby.
"And that's the hell of it!" quoth Cutting Tom.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
DIRE THINGS BEFALL IN THE FOREST.
"'Mistress, it grows somewhat pretty and dark.'
'What then?'
'Nay, nothing. Do not think I am afraid,
Although perhaps you are.'"—Beggars' Bush.
The two large boats were not alone upon the river. Here and there, in the distance, moved the tiny lights of a wherry carrying a benighted fare; and up toward the palaces and Westminster more than one cluster of lanterns and torches swept along, where some party of ladies and gentlemen were rowed to a mask or other revels. From one such company the western breeze brought the strains of guitars; Bill Tooby and his comrades, infected with the spirit of melody, began to sing "Heave and ho, rumbelow," in deep voices, in time with the movement of their bodies.
Along the northern bank of the river, where the dwellings and warehouses of merchants rose like a wall from the water's edge, the dim lights of windows ran in a straggling, interrupted line. Farther west, where the river washed the stairs to the gardens of the great Strand residences and of the Temple, there were scarce any lights at all. On the south bank, a few glowing windows marked the row of taverns and other houses—many of them of questionable repute—which, set back a little from the river, concealed the bear-gardens and playhouses in the fields behind. But soon, as the boat sped down-stream, the buildings on that bank were flush with the shore, save where Winchester House showed a few lighted windows beyond its terrace. Little did Millicent imagine that anything bearing upon her destiny had ever been spoken or thought on that terrace or in that house. In front, spanning the river, another irregular row of window lights indicated the tall, close-built houses of London Bridge; and the roar of the water, first dammed by the piers and then falling in a kind of cataract through the twenty arches, was already loud in the ears.
Millicent kept her eyes on the lights of the boat behind,—only two lights, a lantern at the prow, and a torch held by some one near the stern. They came steadily on, seeming neither to lose nor gain. Suddenly she lost sense of them; but that was when her own boat plunged into one of the arches of the bridge, and seemed to be gulped down by a blacker night, a chill air, and a thunderous noise. Forward and slightly downward the boat flung itself, as if into some gulf of the underworld, but all of a sudden it was out again in the soft air and the calm water, and Millicent, looking up, saw the lit windows of the eastern side of the bridge. She continued gazing back, and very soon the two lights, the little yellow one and the trailing red one, came into view between the piers, still in pursuit at the same distance.