“Cowards!” exclaimed Lancelot. “Even though they fancy they see a girl steering, they make no scruple of trying to hit us.” The shot only made us pull the harder. Presently we saw some of the men descending the cliff, and making towards a boat which lay hauled up on the beach at some distance.
“They suspect something, and intend to pursue us,” observed Lancelot. “Nevertheless, we have a good start of them, and when we get farther out, we shall feel the breeze and be able to make sail.”
“And maybe the other boat hasn’t any oars in her, and if so we can laugh at them,” said Tom.
Lancelot told Dick to steer right out to sea. “They won’t be inclined to follow us far away from the land,” he observed; “and if we make for Lyme, they will guess where we come from.”
We saw the men reach the boat, and presently they began to launch her. By this time we had got well beyond the range of their firearms.
“Hurrah!” cried Dick, who had been looking to the eastward. “I see a sail coming up from Portland. She’s more likely to be a friend than an enemy, and if we can get on board her we may defy our pursuers.”
This announcement encouraged us. We had need, however, to exert ourselves, for the soldiers had almost launched the boat, which showed us that they had found oars, or they would not have taken the trouble of putting her into the water. We could only just see what they were about, but we made out that four or five fellows had got into her.
Directly afterwards, her head being turned towards us, they gave way. Though the boat was heavy, four stout hands were more than a match for us, for though Tom pulled a strong oar, Lancelot and I were scarcely equal in strength to one man.
Dick kept looking eastward. Again he cried out, “There’s another sail, and another; a whole fleet of them!”
“If they are Parliament ships, they’ll soon make the fellows in the boat astern put about,” exclaimed Tom; but we were pulling too hard to turn our heads even for a moment. Our pursuers still kept on, but they were not near enough to allow them to fire with any chance of hitting us.