As I spoke I heard the scattering reports of some six or eight muskets discharged one after another, but the glare of the explosions was absorbed by the fog.
"Ha!" cried I; "they shoot in hope!"
I fell to rowing again, and held to the weighty job stoutly for a good quarter-of-an-hour. Weighty it was, for not only was the boat extremely cumbrous about the bows—if one square end of her more than another could be so termed—the oars were heavy, the blades being spoon-shaped, though flat, and the harder to work not only for the breadth of the boat, but because of the pins being fixed too far abaft the seats.
I had now not much fear of being chased. Even if they found the boat I had liberated by sending men overboard to swim in search of it—there was movement enough in the water to glide it very swiftly into obscurity—I did not apprehend they would venture to pursue me in so great a fog. I threw in my oars and listened. A faint air stirred in the blackness, and if I was correct in supposing that we were heading seawards, then this draught was coming about south-east. The sound of the surf was like a weak rumbling of thunder. I strained my hearing to the right—that is, to starboard, for I sat with my back to the bows; but though indeed I could catch a faint, far-off moan of washing waters that way, the noise of the boiling was on our left.
"I am sure we are out of the bay," said I; "were we penetrating it we should be by this time among the breakers. I heartily pray now this fog will soon thin out. It may whiten into something like light when the moon rides high. There is a faint wind, and I should be glad to step the mast and set the sail. But that isn't to be done by feeling. Besides, there is no rudder, and what there may be in the stern to steady an oar with I cannot conceive."
I paused, thinking she would speak. Finding she was silent, and fearing her to be cold and low-hearted, I said: "My dearest, you will gain confidence with the light. Meanwhile, we have good reason to be grateful for this blackness. They might have killed us could they have seen the boat, for they were prompt with their fire-arms."
"Geoffrey, dear," she exclaimed, in the same low voice I had before noticed in her, "I fear I am wounded."
"Wounded!" I shrieked, springing to my feet.
"The instant Vanderdecken fired—if it was he—" she continued, "I felt a stinging blow in my shoulder. I am very cold just there; I am bleeding, I believe."
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" I cried, for now she spoke at some little length I could hear in her voice the pain she was in; and the feebleness of her voice was like to break my heart, as was the thought of her suffering and bleeding in silence until I had rowed the boat a long distance from the ship.