The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course for a time.
Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in the stern.
'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said.
'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing.
'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis. 'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.'
He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that they don't know for certain where we are.'
But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return, and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side.
'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'—the delicate boy who had been his fag at Eton—stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down into the bottom of the boat!'
And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told.
Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult.