A jagged flash of flame cleaved the night.  It lit the steep bank, flinging a bright glare across the dark waters.  In that instant I saw, my face set shoreward, a dozen black figures clustered in a bunch.  One ball crashed into the planking close beside my hand, hurling a splinter of wood against my face.  The boat gave a sudden tremor, and, with a quick, sharp cry of pain, the negro next me leaped into the air, and went plunging overboard.  I flung forth a hand in vain effort to grapple his body, yet never touched it, and everything about became black once more.

“The poor devil’s gone,” muttered De Noyan.  “The rest of you lay down to your oars, before they have time to load again.”

So quickly did this occur I do not believe we lost more than a stroke or two, and were already well out into the stream, nothing except our narrow stern pointing toward the bank, where some of the soldiers—­we judged from their voices—­were reloading for a second volley, the others searching the shore after some boat in which to begin the pursuit.  It was a hard pull, especially upon my part, as I chanced to sit on the lower side, having full sweep of the current tugging against my oar, while De Noyan headed the boat as directly as possible for the western shore.  The soldiers, completely swallowed in the gloom, made no further attempt to fire; possibly, having seen the fall of the black, they believed their work done.  Nor did other sounds reach us evidencing pursuit; for that moment at least we were free.  It was then I watched the coming of the dawn.

There was a slight, scarcely perceptible, shading into a lighter tinge of the clinging black shadows that veiled the eastern sky, dimly revealing misty outlines of white, fleecy clouds extending above the faint horizon line, until they assumed a spectral brightness, causing me to dream of the fairies’ dwellings which my mother pictured to me in childhood.  Gently the delicate awakening spread along the wider expanse of sky, which became bluish gray, gradually expanding and reflecting its glow along the water, until this also became a portion of the vast arch, while the darker borderland, now far astern, formed merely a distant shade, a background to the majestic picture.  The east became gradually a lighter, more pronounced gray; rosy streaks shot upward through the cloud masses, driving them higher into an ever-deepening upper blue like a flock of frightened birds, until at last the whole eastern horizon blushed like a red rose, while above the black line of distant, shadowy trees, the blazing rim of the sun itself uplifted, casting a wide bar of dazzling gold along our wake.  Gazing thus, every thought of our surroundings, our dangers, and fatigue passed from memory.  Bending to the oar, my soul was far away upon a voyage of its own.

Some unusual movement served to attract attention from this day-dreaming, my eyes falling suddenly upon De Noyan.  His face, turned partially away from the rising sun, was gray with anxiety, and I noted he shivered in his wet clothes.  Yet his smile and speech seemed jauntily unconcerned as ever.