We were not more than two
hundred yards from the strait and the breeze was holding well into it.
What was to be done? Samuel was for putting the helm up; but that would
Have been useless, because we were already in the channel, and to run on
shore would only place us still more in the power of our enemies, if
enemies they were, so I told him to hold his course and run right through
the narrow pass. The other men had sprung quickly from their blankets,
and Thomas was the picture of terror. When he saw that I was about to run
the boat through the strait, he instantly made up his mind to shape for
himself a different course. Abandoning his flint musket to any body who
would take it, he clambered like a monkey on to the gunwale, with the
evident intention of dropping noiselessly into the water, and seeking, by
swimming on shore, a safety which he deemed denied to him on board. Never
shall I forget his face as he was pulled back into the boat; nor is it
easy to describe the sudden revulsion of feeling which possessed him
when: a dozen different fires breaking into view showed at once that the
forest was on fire, and that the imaginary bivouac of the French was only
the flames of burning brushwood.
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