Sleet looked wildly around. She tossed her head, sniffed the salt, oystery air, and seemed about to plunge overboard.
Anna screamed. Valentine threw down his paddle and dashed himself on the boat's outermost edge just in time to save it from overturning. Mistress Sleet, disgusted with Fourth of July, had made up her mind to lie down and take a nap. The boat righted and they were safe. Staten Island Sound at this point was narrow, scarcely more than a quarter of a mile in width, and the tide was fast bearing them out.
"Such uncommon good sense in Sleet," exclaimed the boy. "_That_ cow is worth saving."
At that moment a dozen Red Coats were at the ferry they had just left. The imperious gentlemen were in a fine frenzy at finding the boat gone.
"Steady, steady now," cried the young captain. His mate was steady at the helm until a musket ball or two ran past them.
"Let go!" shouted the captain. "Swing your bonnet. Let them know you're a woman and they won't fire on _you_."
The little mate stood erect. She waved her pink flag of a sun-bonnet. Distinctly the soldiers saw the pink frock of Anna Kull; they saw her long hair as the sea breeze lifted it when she shook her pink banner.
A second, two, three went by as the girl stood there, and then a flash was seen on the bank, a musket-ball ran through the bonnet of the little mate, and the waves of air rattled along the shore.
The bonnet was in the sea; Anna had dropped to her seat and caught the helm in her left hand.
"Cowards!" cried Valentine, for want of a stronger word, and then he fell to working the boat on its way. The tide helped them now; it swung the boat over toward the Jersey shore.
The firing from Staten Island called out the inhabitants on the Jersey coast. They watched the approaching boat with interest. Everything depended now on the cow's lying still, on the boy's strength, on the meeting of the tides. If he could reach there before the tide came up all would be well; otherwise it would sweep him off again toward the island.
"Can't you row?" asked Valentine, at length.
"Bub, I can't," said Anna, her voice shaking out the words. It was the first time she had spoken since she sat down.
"I tremble so," she answered, and turned her face away.