This time the watch came within twenty feet of him,
saluted and retired.
Immediately Gering looked again at the body near him, and started back,
for his feet were in a little pool. He understood: Radisson had escaped
by killing his guard. It was not possible that the crime and the escape
could go long undetected; the watch might at any moment come the full
length of the ship. Gering flashed a glance at him again, his back was
to him still,--suddenly doffed the hat and cloak, vaulted lightly upon
the bulwarks, caught the anchor-chain, slid down it into the water, and
struck out softly along the side. Immediately Radisson was beside him.
"Can you dive?" the Frenchman whispered. "Can you swim under water?"
"A little."
"Then with me, quick!"
The Frenchman dived and Gering followed him. The water was bitter cold,
but when a man is saving his life endurance multiplies.
The Fates were with them: no alarm came from the ship, and they reached
the bank in safety. Here they were upon a now hostile shore without
food, fire, shelter, and weapons; their situation was desperate even yet.
Radisson's ingenuity was not quite enough, so Gering solved the problem:
there were the Frenchmen's canoes; they must be somewhere on the shore.
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