The shots, however, had been fired hastily, and Walter dashed off at full speed, unhurt.  He heard shouts from the roofs of the houses, and one or two shots were fired, but the chance of his being hit was but small.  The sound, however, told the soldiers and crowd in the front street that the fugitive was escaping at the rear, and there was a general rush down the street to the next turning.  Walter was a hundred yards ahead, before the mob reached the turning, and was rapidly distancing the soldiers who were pursuing him.  Unfortunately, however, there were many people hurrying from all sides, attracted by the shouting and firing.  Several of these, in response to the shouts of the soldiers, tried to stop him as he dashed past, and failing to do so, at once joined in the pursuit.

Walter saw that he must be captured, if he kept straight on, for a group of men approaching, warned by the shouts of his pursuers, prepared to seize him.  He therefore turned sharp down a narrow lane to his left.  Another fifty yards he was through this, and found himself on the road, running by the side of the Liffey.  Without a moment’s hesitation he sprang across it, and plunged into the river.

Even in the moment of his spring, he perceived that the tide was running up.  Had it been ebbing, he would have made down and tried to gain the shore, under shelter of the shipping moored below.  But it was useless to think of swimming against the tide.  His pursuers were but a few yards behind him, and the second time he rose to the surface for air, two or three shots were fired.  He dived again, and when he next came up, took a deliberate look round in order to judge of his chances.

He was now about a third of the way across.  The shore he had left was already lined with people, and several were gathering on the opposite bank.  Two or three shots struck the water close to him, and he knew that he was visible to his pursuers.  Taking a long breath, he again went under water.  He was a first-rate swimmer and diver, having bathed regularly, summer and winter, in the bay below the castle.

He had, this time, turned his face towards the shore he had quitted.  The tide, he knew, was sweeping him up.  He kept under water as long as he possibly could, swimming his hardest.  When he could keep under no longer, he turned on his back, and permitted himself to rise slowly to the surface.

The moment his mouth and nostrils were above water, he got rid of the pent-up air, took another breath, and sank again.  He swam on until he felt, by the ground rising rapidly in front of him, that he was close to the edge.  He then cautiously came to the surface, and looked round.

He was close under the bank from which he had started, but two or three hundred yards higher up.  The bank rose straight up, some twelve feet above him, and he could hear persons talking close to its edge.

“There he is.”

“No, he isn’t.”