In a moment, he had it free from its lashing and the rude craft was bumping along the bank in spite of his best efforts with the paddle.

Then a favoring current caught it and swept it out toward the center of the stream.
It was much too big and clumsy for him to control without the stream's help, though he labored doggedly with his paddle.

Now he was broadside to the current, now he was being spun round and round, but always he was carried farther and farther from the spot where he had embarked.

He passed about a bend; and a hundred yards beyond, about a second bend; then the stream opened up straight before him a half-mile of smooth running water.

Far down it, at the point where the trees met in the unbroken line of the forest and the water seemed to vanish mysteriously, he could distinguish a black moving object; some ark or raft, doubtless.
In the smoother water of the long reach, Hannibal began to make head against the flood.