panting behind me; I then went off at my full
speed, and after a few minutes I heard her voice at some distance
faintly calling out my name. "Yes," thought I, "but I have not
forgotten the ball and chain; and if you thought that you had let
loose a lion while we were in the cabin, you shall find that you have
loosed a deer in the woods." I then stopped for a few moments to
recover my breath; I did not, however, wait long; I was afraid that my
mistress might recover her breath as well as myself, and I again set
off as fast as I could. The idea of torture from the Indians, or again
being kept confined by my mistress, gave me endurance which I thought
myself incapable of. Before morning I calculated that I had run at
least twenty miles, if not more.

With the perspiration running down me in streams, and hardly able to
drag one leg before the other, I at last, just about daybreak, gave it
up, when I threw myself on the ground, and dropped out of my hand my
axe, which I had carried the whole way. I lay there for more than half
an hour, tormented with thirst, but quite unable to move. At last I
recovered; and, as I well knew that the Indians would divide in
parties of three or four, and hunt every part of the woods, and by
daylight probably discover my track, I rose and prepared to resume my
toil, when, looking round me, I perceived that I was exactly on the
spot where I had followed the deer, and had fallen in with the Jolly
Rover, as he termed himself, who had pointed out the way to the
plantations. I turned and saw the river below, and as he had told me
that the Indians never came there, I resolved to go to the river,
where, at least, I should find shell-fish and water. I did so; and in
half an hour arrived at the skirts of the wood, and found that the
river was about four hundred yards from me and clear of trees at the
mouth for some distance. I went down to the river, which ran swiftly
out, and I drank till I was ready to burst. I then rose on my feet,
and walked along its banks towards the mouth, thinking what I should
do. To get to James Town appeared to me to be an impossibility, unless
by water, and I was not likely to meet with any other vessel here but
a pirate. Should I then go aboard of a pirate? It appeared to me to
be my only resource, and that I should be happy if I could find one.

By this time I had arrived at the mouth of the river, and, looking out
to seaward, I saw a schooner at anchor. She was about th