volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of
metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of
them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing
their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was
uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been
a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream--nearer
to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal
ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from
the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The
two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming
vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms
and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:

"The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a
second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He
has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me,
I cannot dodge them all!"

An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud,
rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air
to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to
its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon
him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the
game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten
water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and
in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest