"Let them curse," said Bela. "Cursin' won't catch us. Already they rowin' half an hour. Get tire' soon."
"They've got a spare man to change to," Sam reminded her. He was now as keen to give them the slip as Bela. The mainland ahead promised freedom; not only freedom from his late masters, but freedom from her, too.
Looking over their shoulders, they saw the steersman change to one of the oars. Thereafter the rowboat came on with renewed speed, but the dugout seemed to draw steadily ahead.
Sam's heart rose. Bela, however, searching the wide sky and the water for weather signs, began to look anxious.
Sure enough, presently the heavy sail began to sag, and they could feel the dugout lose way under them. They groaned involuntarily. At the same moment their pursuers perceived the slackening of the wind and shouted in a different key.
The wind freshened again, and once more died away. Now the dugout forged ahead; now the rowboat began to overhaul them. It was nip and tuck down the lake between sail and oars.
The shore they were making for began to loom nearer, but the puffs of wind were coming at longer and longer intervals, and finally they ran into a glassy calm, though they could see slants of wind all about them, a situation to drive pursued sailors frantic.
Bela paddled manfully, but her single blade was no match for two long oars. The sail was a handicap now. Bela had staked everything on it, and they could not take it down without capsizing the dugout. The oarsmen came rapidly, with derisive shouts in anticipation of a speedy triumph.
"You've got your gun," muttered Sam. "You're a better shot than any of them. Use it while you have the advantage."
She shook her head. "No shoot. Too moch trouble mak' already."
She still refused. "They die in cold water if boat sink."
"We might as well jump overboard, then," he said bitterly.
"Look!" she cried suddenly. "Wind comin', too!"
Behind the rowboat a dark-blue streak was creeping over the surface of the lake.
"Ah, wind, come quick! Come quick!" Bela murmured involuntarily. "A candle for the altar! My rabbit-skin robe to Père Lacombe!"
At the same time she did not cease paddling.
The rowers saw the breeze coming, too, and, bending their backs, sent the water flying from their oars. They managed to keep ahead of it. Both boats were now within a furlong of the river-head. The race seemed over. The rowboat drew even with the dugout, and they looked into their pursuers' faces, red with exertion and distorted in cruel triumph.