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My attempt to recross the river proved difficult I had lost no s ht shoulder as to render any strain upon the oars a constant pain Yet the excite doeakness by sheer force of will, I drove the heavy boat straight through the low, overhanging bushes on to the soft mud of the bank Before I could arise to reat eyes staring at the blood stains discoloring my doublet

"You are hurt!" she exclai you tell me, is it a serious wound?"

"Nay, the merest scratch, Madame," I answered hastily, for it added to my pain to ht, but I will ask you to call the others at once, and have the into the boat without delay I will await you here, as I findintently at hts; and no doubt my face was sufficiently white to alarm her, yet I shtly up the bank Nor was she long away, or noisy in herelapsed before the three ca down to the water-side, their hands laden with cah, and filled with intense interest in my adventures, but the Puritan yet cock-eyed fro as he walked like a man in a dreanoring the question in the eyes of the Chevalier "I have tasted a sword point, and am weakened from loss of blood Pull up the stream, and be swift and quiet about it"

"Hast thou been smitten of the Philistine, friend Benteen?" loudly questioned Cairnes, stuh to tell er," I returned tartly, annoyed by his aardness "If you utter another word before we are around yonder headland, I will have De Noyan hoist you overboard"

I saw hilance askance at the unconscious Chevalier as ifhis ability to perforray eyes swept the sodden shore as though vaguely wondering what it e fled fro withdraw aze from that north bank, until we rounded the bend in the stream, and were safely ren of life along the ridge,that the Spanish sailors yet slept soundly, while as to their irate cohness which leftreassured I finally yielded to Eloise's entreaties, laying bareMadaes as entle about it; but I ers and the pallor of her face, for it was not a bad wound, De Noyan hesitating not towrist which drove the tuck in Anyith the reaction and the loss of blood, I lay back quite spent, telling over briefly those incidents that had occurred to me while they slept