ear, from time to time there was a twinkle, a flash
behind the reed-beds on the eastern bank, and now and then there was a
rustling and clatter there. Was it a jackal that had plunged into the
dense growth to surprise a brood of water-fowl; was it a hyena trampling
through the thicket?

The flashing, the rustling, the dull footfall on parched earth followed
the barge all through the night like a sinister, lurid, and muttering
shadow.

Suddenly the captain started and gazed eastwards.--What was that?

There was a herd of cattle feeding in a field beyond the reeds-two bulls
perhaps were sharpening their horns. The river was so low, and the banks
rose so high, that it was impossible to see over them. But at this moment
a shrill voice spoke his name, and then the hunchback whispered in his
ear:

"There--over there--it is glittering again.--I will bite off my own nose
if that is not--there, again. Merciful God! I am not mistaken.
Harness--and there, that is the neighing of a horse; I know the sound.
The east is growing grey. By all the saints, we are pursued!"

The captain looked eastwards with every sense alert, and after a few
minutes silence he said decidedly "Yes."

"Like a flight of quail for whom the fowler spreads his net," sighed the
gardener; but the boatman impatiently signed to him to be quiet, and
gazed cautiously on every side. Then he desired Gibbus to wake Rufinus
and the shipwrights, and to hide all the nuns in the cabin.

"They will be packed as close as the dates sent to Rome in boxes,"
muttered the gardener, as he went to call Rufinus. "Poor souls, their
saints may save them from suffocation; and as for me, on my faith, if it
were not that Dame Joanna was the very best creature on two legs, and if
I had not promised her to stick to the master, I would jump into the
water and try the hospitality of the flamingoes and storks in the reeds!
We must learn to condescend!"

While he was fulfilling his errand, the captain was exchanging a few
words with his brother at the helm. There was no bridge near, and that
was well. If the horsemen were indeed in pursuit of them, they must ride
through the water to reach them; and scarcely three stadia lower down,
the river grew wider and ran through a marshy tract of country; the only
channel was near the western bank, and horsemen attempting to get to it
ran the risk of foundering in the mud. If the boat could but get as far
as that reach, much would be gained.