It was a relief presently to meet the salt sea air on our faces, and to hear ahead once more the angry roar of the waves at the river's mouth.
Just as we reached the place where the channel, narrowing suddenly, tears its way through the sand into the ocean, a posse of horsemen dashed down on the western shore and shouted to us.

So near were they, that I could see Tom Price among them, and beside him, that rascally Captain Laker, whom I had seen, or heard, last in Sir William Carleton's garden at Richmond.
One of the rowers pulled me down to the bottom of the boat just as a volley of shot whizzed over our heads.
"Up now, and row like fiends," cried our men when it had passed.
"Give me my pistol," said Ludar, "I have at least one arm." So we tore through the water, letting fly at them as best we could while they stood reloading.
Ludar's aim missed, for he had only his left hand.

Mine was more lucky, since it knocked over the villain Laker just as he raised his gun for a second shot.
This saved us; for it gave us time to pull further beyond reach.

So that when the next volley came, it pattered harmlessly in the waves around us.
This time we could not duck our heads, for our boat was already in the hurly-burly of the surf, and needed all our skill and all our strength to get her over that angry bar.

More than once we were glad to fall back right side uppermost, and more than once we looked to see every timber we had fly asunder.