’Twas about an hour later when I heard the tube pushed up through the hole in the floor.  Uncle Moses was below.  The critical moment for which I had been longing was come, and my limbs trembled uncontrollably, as they had not done since the time when I saw my first sea fight on the deck of the Dolphin.  As we had arranged, I allowed time for the negro to mount the steps and come through the veranda into the room adjoining.  Then, gathering my strength, I took three strides across my chamber and dashed my right shoulder against the door.  It flew outwards with a crash, the force of my impact being such that the lock tore a great piece out of the jamb.

I rushed blindly into the next room, and lost a few moments in the endeavor to grasp the scene.  But my jailors lost more, for the crash had wakened them from a sound sleep and, seamen though they were, the event was so sudden and unexpected that they were taken perfectly aback, and were still looking about them in a dazed bewilderment when Uncle Moses and I threw ourselves upon them.  We got them just as they were staggering to their feet.  A blow from my fist sent one spinning against the wall; at the same moment the negro, whom I had barely yet seen, caught the other man by the middle and, by a feat of strength which amazed me, hurled him through the doorway into the room I had just quitted.  I hoped they were stunned; we could not wait to see, and we had no means of binding them.

The noise must have awakened everybody in the house; indeed, I heard shouts from the rear; no doubt the overseer, and the two buccaneers who had been on guard during the night, would in a few moments be upon the scene.  Snatching up the men’s muskets and bandoliers that lay on a bench against the wall, we dashed into the veranda, sprang down the steps, and made off across the plantation.

We had not run a hundred yards when we heard a bellow behind us, and, turning, I saw a man at the head of the steps lighting the match for his musket.  I was pleased at this, for it would give us another hundred yards’ start before he could fire.  The muskets of these days can not boast of great precision, but those of fifty years ago were infinitely more cumbersome and clumsy, so that I did not fear he would hit us, unless by some unlucky chance.  And indeed, when his weapon flashed, we were quite two hundred and fifty yards away, and the slug went very wide.  He would have done better, I thought, to pursue us at once on foot.

But as we sped on side by side, I heard a great horn blast that seemed to set the welkin ablaze.  ’Twas the signal that a slave had run away, and I could not doubt that Vetch would immediately suspect what had actually happened.  Before long, beyond question, he would be hot upon our traces.

“How far to the forest?” I asked of the negro.

“More’n a mile, massa,” he replied.