onscious of a movement in the water,
slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more
accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something
coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt
that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when
someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank.
Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section
of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with
difficulty--once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful
racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and,
providentially unsuspicious, called:

"Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?"

I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit.
Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme
peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and
reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a
piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three
yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of
cursing men.

"For God's sake," I whispered--but Smilax had turned back to us and was
beside her.

"Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him
quick! Me get Echochee!"

While saying this he was pushing her up to me, at the same time holding
out a bag, or kind of traveling case, that she had dropped. I seized it
with one hand, and her arm with the other.

"Quick; go to camp," Smilax was saying. "Me get Echochee and give 'em
chase up coast. Be back soon; you wait there."

He had taken to the water again and was making for the Indian woman, who
I thought had started out to meet him. So I knew he would rescue her, as
surely as he was six and a half feet of muscle and endurance. The camp
had become thoroughly aroused by now, and lights were everywhere. Hoping
to reassure Sylvia, I whispered as Smilax would have spoken:

"Me friend; come quick!"

Above the confusion we could hear the voice of Efaw Kotee bellowing:

"Get the punts, you fools! Which way is she?"

"On the mainland," someone yelled.

"Then catch her," he bellowed again, with a string of blasphemous oaths.

This decided her, and she whispered wildly:

"Hurry! Take me where Tachachobee said!"

We dashed through the forest, I leading, she close behind. Nor had we
any time to spare, for before we had gone a hundred