grasped by Wharton, while Anderson swayed the other, the remainder
watching their movements, which could not have been more skillful.
Pressing the end against the bank, and afterwards against the clayey
bottom, the craft speedily swung several rods from shore.

While the two men were thus employed, the others peered off in the
gloom and listened for a repetition of the sounds that had frightened
them a few minutes before. They were not heard again, nor could the
straining vision detect anything of the dreaded object, which could not
be far away. Not a person on board doubted that a number of their
enemies were near and searching for them. Dr. Marlowe would have taken
comfort from this fact had the circumstances been different; for the
men who were hunting for him would go to his house, since it was there
they must gain their first knowledge of his flight; but, as he viewed
it, it was impossible that they should be wholly ignorant of the boat
and its occupants, which must have made most of the distance before
night closed in.

It followed, therefore, that if they were looking for the doctor and
his family they were also looking for the boat and the fugitives it
contained. The low-lying shore, with no trees fringing the bank, was
the worst place for him and his friends, and he was in a fever of
eagerness to reach the protecting shadows along shore. The nerves of
all were keyed to the tensest point, when they caught the dim outlines
of the overhanging growth, with the leafage as exuberant as it always
is in a subtropical region at that season of the year. The men toiled
with vigor and care, while the others glanced from the gloom of the
river to the deeper gloom of the bank, which seemed to recede as they
labored toward it. With a relief that cannot be imagined the bulky
craft glided into the bank of deeper gloom, which so wrapped it about