"Ay," I answered. "Of the two evils it seems the lesser."
"How about a boat?"
"My own is fastened to the piles of the old deserted wharf."
"You have with you neither food nor water."
"Both are in the boat. I have kept her victualed for a week or
more."
He laughed in the darkness, and I heard my wife beside me utter a
stifled exclamation.
The lane that we were now in ran parallel to the street to within
fifty yards of the guest house, when it bent sharply down to the
river. We moved silently and with caution, for some night bird
might accost us or the watch come upon us. In the guest house all
was darkness save one room, - the upper room, - from which came
a very pale light. When we had turned with the lane there were no
houses to pass; only gaunt pines and copses of sumach. I took my
wife by the hand and hurried her on. A hundred yards before us
ran the river, dark and turbulent, and between us and it rose an old,
unsafe, and abandoned landing. Sparrow laid his hand upon my
arm. "Footsteps behind us," he whispered.
Without slackening pace I turned my head and looked. The clouds,
high around the horizon, were thinning overhead, and the moon,
herself invisible, yet lightened the darkness below. The sandy lane
stretched behind us like a ribbon of twilight, - nothing to be seen
but it and the ebony mass of bush and tree lining it on either side.
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