ed sharp down a narrow lane to his left.
Another fifty yards he was through this, and found himself on the road,
running by the side of the Liffey. Without a moment's hesitation he
sprang across it, and plunged into the river.

Even in the moment of his spring, he perceived that the tide was running
up. Had it been ebbing, he would have made down and tried to gain the
shore, under shelter of the shipping moored below. But it was useless to
think of swimming against the tide. His pursuers were but a few yards
behind him, and the second time he rose to the surface for air, two or
three shots were fired. He dived again, and when he next came up, took a
deliberate look round in order to judge of his chances.

He was now about a third of the way across. The shore he had left was
already lined with people, and several were gathering on the opposite
bank. Two or three shots struck the water close to him, and he knew that
he was visible to his pursuers. Taking a long breath, he again went under
water. He was a first-rate swimmer and diver, having bathed regularly,
summer and winter, in the bay below the castle.

He had, this time, turned his face towards the shore he had quitted. The
tide, he knew, was sweeping him up. He kept under water as long as he
possibly could, swimming his hardest. When he could keep under no longer,
he turned on his back, and permitted himself to rise slowly to the
surface.

The moment his mouth and nostrils were above water, he got rid of the
pent-up air, took another breath, and sank again. He swam on until he
felt, by the ground rising rapidly in front of him, that he was close to
the edge. He then cautiously came to the surface, and looked round.

He was close under the bank from which he had started, but two or three
hundred yards higher up. The bank rose straight up, some twelve feet
above him, and he could hear persons talking close to its edge.

"There he is."

"No, he isn't."

"Pretty nearly over the other side."

"I don't see him."

"They will catch him as he gets out."

"I believe he has sunk."

"He never could keep under all this time."

"One of the bullets must have hit him."

Then a voice in the crowd shouted, "There's his head, just in the middle
of the river," and a stone splashed in the stream. It was followed by a
volley of other stones, and several musket shots in the same direction.

Walter, having now got his breath, sank his head quietly below the water
and swam