At this impudent remark the boatmen began to row with renewed vigour; the salt spray drove aboard in showers, the wind roared in our ears, the horses huddled together.
Once more we swung across the line of boats; in the craft just ahead of us I could see the marines sitting with their muskets on their knees, right hands covering the flints and pans.
As the distance slowly increased between us and the troop-boats, I began to breathe more freely. Mount stood by his horse, coolly chewing a straw from the wadded oar-locks, his fox-skin cap pushed back on his head, the fluffy tail blowing wildly in the wind.
Slowly the dark shore took shape before us; already I could smell the land smell, and hear the wind among the reeds.
Oh, the happiness to be free from that prison city, lying there in the gloom across the water!—the joy to tread free ground once more, to scent free winds, to move unrestrained across the world again!
Mount, too, was sniffing restlessly at the marsh, wreathed in sea-mist; I fancied his eyes glowed in the moonlight like the eyes of a waiting hound.
Something touched my hand; Shemuel came cowering to my side.
"Courage," I whispered.
"I haf done all I could," he said, in a shaking voice.
"I know that, lad," I muttered.