In the next second, he glided between and among some willow shoots which grew close to the water's edge, and were overhung by thick bushes, and there the boat lay, held by the strong arm of the mulatto, still and motionless.
At the same moment, some dry branches broke off above, and the leaves rustled--a rider bounded forward, heedless of the closely interwoven branches, and severing them with a sharp hunting-knife only when they actually stopped his passage, nearly to the edge of the bank, and, bending forward, gazed up and down the stream.
"Do you see nothing, Wolfgang?" the anxious voice of Pastor Hehrmann was now heard to ask--"can you discover nothing of my children?"
Bertha, hearing the voice of her father close above her, made a desperate exertion of strength to free her mouth, but Turner held her with an iron grasp, so that she was hindered from making any movement whatever; whilst Normann applied the same restraint to the younger sister, and in addition, pointed a knife at her breast. Although not a syllable escaped him in this action, yet his eyes betrayed the devil that was lurking within.
"Nothing!--nothing at all to be seen or heard!" said young Wolfgang, with a sigh. "And yet it appeared to me, just before we reached the bank, as though I heard the sound of an oar; but I must have deceived myself."
A contemptuous smile played round the corners of Turner's mouth.
"And are you quite certain that they had a boat above here?" asked Herbold's voice.
"I can pledge my neck for it!" Wolfgang answered him; "the tracks were plain enough to be seen."
"Perhaps they are not so far yet," said Becher, who had now also arrived. "As you say yourself, the river hereabouts makes great bends, all of which we have cut off, and I should think, therefore----"
"Perhaps--but perhaps not," Wolfgang interrupted him. "But we must consider this, above all things--that in case they should have passed, we are wasting valuable time in a most inexcusable manner, for we give them more and more the start; and if they once reach the Mississippi, little hope remains of our overtaking them."
The mulatto, in the boat below, nodded his head, with a grin that disclosed two rows of dazzling white teeth.