Presently they heard a voice in English say, “It is no use our troubling ourselves.  It’s a mere waste of time.  The young rascals are dead.  Drowned or blown up, what matters it?  They will never trouble you again.”

“You don’t know the villains as well as I do.  They have as many lives as cats.  I could have sworn that they were burned at that mill, for I watched till it fell, and not a soul came out; and to this moment I don’t know how they escaped, unless they flew away in the smoke.  Then I thought at any rate the chief rogue was done for, when Muller wrote to tell me he was going to finish him for me the next day.  Then they both got through that day’s fighting by the Scheldt, though I hear they were in the front of it.  And now, when I leave them fastened up like puppies in a basket, in a sinking boat, comes this explosion, and all is uncertain again.”

“Not a bit of it,” the other voice said; “they simply preferred a sudden death to a slow one.  The matter is simple enough.”

“I wish I could think so,” the other said.  “But I tell you, after this night’s work I shall never feel my life’s safe for one hour, till I hear certain news of their death.

“Stop rowing,” he said, in Dutch.  “There is a bit of a plank; we must be just on the place where she blew up!  Listen, does anyone hear anything?”

There was a long silence, and then he said, “Row about for half an hour.  It’s as dark as a wolf’s mouth, but we may come upon them.”

In the meantime, the two lads were swimming steadily and quietly away.

Presently Hugh said, “I must get rid of my sword, Master Rupert, it seems pulling me down.  I don’t like to lose it, for it was my grandfather’s.”

“You had better lose the grandfather’s sword, Hugh, than the grandson’s life.  Loose your belt, Hugh, and let it go.  Mine is no weight in comparison.  I’ll stick to it as long as I can, for it may be useful; but if needs be, it must follow yours.”

“Which way do you think the shore lies?” Hugh asked, after having, with a sigh of regret, loosed his sword belt and let it go.

“I have no idea, Hugh.  It’s no use swimming now, for with nothing to fix our eyes on, we may be going round in a circle.  All we need do is to keep ourselves afloat till the mist clears up, or daylight comes.”

For an hour they drifted quietly.

Hugh exclaimed, “I hear a voice.”

“So do I, Hugh.  It may be on shore, it may be in a boat.  Let us make for it in either case.”

In five minutes they saw close ahead of them a large boat, which, with its sail hanging idly by the mast, was drifting downstream.  Two boatmen were sitting by the tiller, smoking their pipes.

“Heave us a rope,” Hugh said in Dutch.  “We have had an upset, and shall be glad to be out of this.”

The boatmen gave a cry of surprise, but at once leapt to their feet, and would have thrown a rope, but by this time the lads were alongside, and leaning over they helped them into the boat.  Then they looked with astonishment at their suddenly arrived guests.