The water poured in so rapidly Madame was for going overboard also, but we persuaded her to remain.

Anyway, we drove the prow against the bank at last, and, as I rested, panting from exertion, I observed the others dragging themselves wearily ashore, Cairnes was a sight, with his great mat of red hair soaked with black mud, which had oozed down over his face, so as to leave it almost unrecognizable.

He shook himself like a shaggy water-dog after a bath, flinging himself down full length with a growl.
De Noyan fared somewhat better, coming ashore with a smile, even trolling the snatch of a song as he climbed the bank, but his gay military cap, without which, jauntily perched upon one side of his head, I had scarcely before seen him, had gone floating down-stream, and the fierce upward curl of his long moustachios had vanished.

They hung now limp, leaving so little _a la militaire_ in his appearance that I had to smile, noting the look of surprise in Madame's eyes as he gallantly assisted her to the dry grass, before flinging himself flat for a breathing spell.
"God guide us!" I exclaimed, so soon as I could trust myself to speak.
"This is a hard ending to all our toil, nor do I understand how it came about." "_Sacre_!" commented De Noyan, glancing across at the fellow.

"It looked to me as if yonder canting preacher either was taken with a fit, or sought to make ending here of two papists." I turned to face the grim-faced sectary, still too thoroughly winded by his late exertions to try the lift of a Psalm.
"See here, sirrah," I began angrily in English, "perhaps you will explain what sort of a Connecticut trick you attempted to play there in the current ?" He twisted his narrow eyes in my direction, apparently studying the full meaning of my words before venturing an answer.
"I know not what you mean, friend," he returned at last, in that deep booming voice of his.