There were two long poles belonging to the boat, one of which was 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 that it was invisible from any point more than a dozen yards distant.

It is inconceivable how a narrower escape could have come about, for the two men had hardly ceased poling, allowing the boat to move forward with the momentum already gained, when their enemies were discovered.  Mary Marlowe’s arm was interlocked with that of her father, when she nervously clutched it and whispered: 

“Yonder is their boat!”

All saw the terrifying sight at the same moment.  Almost opposite, and barely fifty yards out on the river, could be traced a moving shadow, the outlines of which showed a craft similarly shaped to their own, except that it was somewhat smaller and sat lower in the water.  The men were too dimly seen for their number to be counted or their motions observed, but, as in the former instance, the sounds indicated that they were using paddles.

Since it was certain that the natives were searching for the fugitives in the boat under the shadows of the bank every one of the latter wondered that the pursuers remained out in the stream, when there was need of unimpeded vision.  They half expected their enemies to turn to the left and come directly for them.  But nothing of the kind took place.  The craft headed down the river, the sound of the paddles so slight that only the closely listening ear could hear them, until it melted in the gloom and vanished from sight.