would take up or down the dyke. I thought I heard a sound--the muffled
sound of oars, so I listened, and then shouted.

No response; but the sound ceased. My enemies had evidently got a boat
of some kind. As they were on the up side of me I took the down path and
began to run. As I passed to the left of where I had entered the water I
heard several splashes, soft and stealthy, like the sound a rat makes as
he plunges into the stream, but vastly greater; and as I looked I saw
the dark sheen of the water broken by the ripples of several advancing
heads. Some of my enemies were swimming the stream also.

And now behind me, up the stream, the silence was broken by the quick
rattle and creak of oars; my enemies were in hot pursuit. I put my best
leg foremost and ran on. After a break of a couple of minutes I looked
back, and by a gleam of light through the ragged clouds I saw several
dark forms climbing the bank behind me. The wind had now begun to rise,
and the water beside me was ruffled and beginning to break in tiny waves
on the bank. I had to keep my eyes pretty well on the ground before me,
lest I should stumble, for I knew that to stumble was death. After a few
minutes I looked back behind me. On the dyke were only a few dark
figures, but crossing the waste, swampy ground were many more. What new
danger this portended I did not know--could only guess. Then as I ran it
seemed to me that my track kept ever sloping away to the right. I looked
up ahead and saw that the river was much wider than before, and that the
dyke on which I stood fell quite away, and beyond it was another stream
on whose near bank I saw some of the dark forms now across the marsh. I
was on an island of some kind.

My situation was now indeed terrible, for my enemies had hemmed me in on
every side. Behind came the quickening roll of the oars, as though my