she
was waterborne, both of us stopped as with one accord to listen lest an
enemy might have been creeping up on us.

Nothing came to our ears save the splash of oars in the distance nearby
where the king's ships were at anchor, and a distant hum as of people
moving about in the town a long way off.

"I reckon this is as good a time as we'll find for making the start,"
Hiram said as he clambered into the skiff. "I don't count myself as much
of a sailor, and therefore you will have to take a hand in this until we
have landed somewhere near to Willis creek, which is our best course on
the road to Cambridge."

"Why not go by Cambridge river?" I asked, eager to save myself a long
tramp on land.

"If you are willing to take the risk, I'm agreed; but it strikes me that
if the guard-boats are very thick hereabouts we'll have a better show of
getting off scot free by going up the creek, than if we sailed entirely
around the town, as we must in order to gain the river."

There was some good sense in what he said, which I understood even
before he ceased speaking, and I made reply while pushing the skiff out
from amid the rotten timbers:

"It would seem as if you were sailor enough to understand what dangers
lie in our course, and perhaps I had best give over the command to you,
for verily I showed myself a simple by thinking it possible to go by
the river."

"I have been around Cambridge a few days, an' seein's how there was a
chance my mother's son might get himself into a scrape while these 'ere
Britishers are so careless with their guns, I made it my business to
pick up a pretty good idee of the situation," Hiram said with a chuckle
of mirth at his own precautions. "I figured quite a spell ago that if a
man wanted to get across to the other shore, he'd best make the water
part of the journey as short as might be."

By this time we were well out from beneath the wharf. I had taken up the
oars, since there was not wind enough to fill the sail, and was counting
on stretching across from Hudson's point to Charlestown, when Hiram
whispered softly:

"Turn about lad; head exactly opposite to where you count on going, for
yonder, coming this way if I'm not mistaken, is a craft of some kind."

Fortunately I acted on his suggestion without delaying to ask the reason
for such a move, and it was well that I did, since we were no sooner
headed toward Noddle island than I could make out, even in the gloom, a
boat filled with