The last they saw of Heywood, he went leaping from sight over the
crest, that swarmed with figures racing and stumbling after.
The unheeded sentinel in the marsh fled, losing his great hat, as the
boat drifted round the point into midstream.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DRAGON'S SHADOW
The lowdah would have set his dirty sails without delay, for the fair
wind was already drooping; but at the first motion he found himself
deposed, and a usurper in command, at the big steering-paddle. Captain
Kneebone, his cheeks white and suddenly old beneath the untidy stubble
of his beard, had taken charge. In momentary danger of being cut off
downstream, or overtaken from above, he kept the boat waiting along the
oozy shore. Puckering his eyes, he watched now the land, and now the
river, silent, furtive, and keenly perplexed, his head on a swivel, as
though he steered by some nightmare chart, or expected some instant and
transforming sight.
Not until the sun touched the western hills, and long shadows from the
bank stole out and turned the stream from bright copper to vague
iron-gray, did he give over his watch.
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