work the excitement of it
prevailed over every other thought. Purvis himself and all his
meannesses were forgotten. It was a race, and that was all, and four
men's hearts leapt to it.

The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning
mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course
for a time.

Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the
tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending
his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in
the stern.

'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said.

'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing.

'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis.
'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.'

He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight
piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his
revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared
Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that
they don't know for certain where we are.'

But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return,
and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side.

'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then
the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'--the delicate boy who
had been his fag at Eton--stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot
whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down
into the bottom of the boat!'

And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told.

Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and
the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult.

By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of it! He had the
tiller-ropes in his hands again. He made a feint to go under the bank
as though to land, and then shot suddenly into midstream. The other
boat followed in their wake. Purvis's knowledge of the currents was
probably well known, and it was safe to follow his lead: the boat and
the men in it were clear enough to see now.

But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing! It positively seemed
as though he was trying to lose the little bit of way that they had
gained in advance of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense of
the man's unscrupulousness came over Peter Ogilvie, and he wondered
even