"Cassy!" I snapped. "Can you use a gun?"
She nodded. "Take this, then," says I. "Cover them — and if one of them stirs a finger shoot the swine in the stomach! There — catch hold. Good girl, good girl — I'll be back in an instant!"
"What is it?" Her eyes were wild. "Where are you —"
"Don't ask questions! Trust me!" And with that I slipped out of the door, pulled it to, and was off like a stung whippet. I'd make quarter of a mile, maybe more, before she would twig, or they overpowered her, and that quarter mile could be the difference between life and death — but even as I was away with my first frenzied spring a dun-coloured, white-fanged horror came surging up at my side, teeth dragged at the tail of my coat, and I came down in a sprawling tangle of limbs with one of those damned hounds snarling and tearing at me.
By the grace of God I fell just beyond reach of its leash; I suppose the brute had gone for me because it knew a guilty fugitive when it saw one, and now it tore and frothed against its chain to be at me. I jumped up to resume my flight, and then I heard Cassy scream in the tavern, the Colt banged, somebody howled, and the door flew open. Cassy came out at a blind run, making for the thicket that bordered the river; I spared not a glance for the tavern door but went high-stepping after her for all I was worth, expecting a bullet between the shoulders at every stride.
As luck had it the thicket was only a dozen yards away, but by the time I had burst through it Cassy was well ahead of me. I suppose it was blind instinct that made me follow her, now that my own chance of a clear getaway had been scuppered by whatever had gone amiss in the tavern — the stupid bitch could have held them longer than two seconds, you'd have thought — and there was nothing to do but shift like blazes. It was growing dusk, but not near dark enough for concealment, and she was running for dear life along the bank eastwards. I pounded down the slope, yelling to her, at my wits' end over where we were going to run to. Could we hide — no, my God, the dogs! We couldn't outstrip them along the bank — where then? The same thoughts must have been in Cassy's mind, for as I closed on her, and heard the din of shouting rise a hundred yards behind me, she suddenly checked, and with a despairing cry leaped down the bank to the water's edge.
"No! No!" I bawled. "Not on the ice — we'll drown for certain!" But she never heeded. There was a narrow strip of brown water between her and the nearest floe, and she cleared it like a hunter, slipping and falling, but scrambling up again and clambering over the hummocks beyond. Oh, Christ, thinks I, she's mad, but then I looked behind, and there they were, running down from the tavern, with the dogs yelping in the background. I took a race down the bank and jumped, my feet flew from under me on the ice, and I came down with a sickening crash. I staggered up, plunging over the mass of frozen cakes locked like a great raft ahead of me, and saw Cassy steadying herself for a leap on to a level floe beyond. She made it, and I tumbled down the hummocks and leaped after her. Somehow I kept my footing, and slithered and slipped across the floe, which must have been thirty yards from side to side.
Beyond it there were great rough cakes bucking about in the current, but so close together that we were able to scramble across them. Once my leg went in, and I just avoided plunging headlong; Cassy was twenty yards ahead, and I remember roaring to her to wait for me — God knows why, but one does these things. And then behind me came the crack of a shot, and glancing over my shoulder I saw that our pursuers were leaving the bank and taking the ice in our wake.
God! It was a nightmare. If I'd had a moment to think I'd have given up the ghost, but fear sent me skipping and stumbling over the pack, babbling prayers and curses, sprawling on the ice, cutting my hands and knees to shreds, and staggering up to follow her dark figure over the floes. All round the ice was grinding and groaning fearfully; it surged beneath our feet, cracking and tilting, and then I saw her stumble and kneel clinging to a floe; she was sobbing and shrieking, and two more shots came banging behind and whistled above us in the dusk.
As I overtook her she managed to regain her feet, glaring wildly back beyond me. Her dress was in shreds, her hands were dark with blood, her hair was trailing loose like a witch's. But she went reeling on, jumping another channel and staggering across the rugged floe beyond. I set myself for the jump, slipped, and fell full length into the icy water.
It was so bitter that I screamed, and she turned back and came slithering on all fours to the edge. I grabbed her hand, and somehow I managed to scramble out. The yelping of the dogs was sounding closer, a gun banged, a frightful pain tore through my buttock, and I pitched forward on to the ice. Cassy screamed, a man's voice sounded in a distant roar of triumph, and I felt blood coursing warm down my leg.
"My God, are you hurt?" she cried, and for some idiot reason I bad a vision of a tombstone bearing the legend: "Here lies Harry Flashman, late 11th Hussars, shot in the arse while crossing the Ohio River". The pain was sickening, but I managed to lurch to my feet, clutching my backside, and Cassy seized my hand, dragging me on.
"Not far! Not far!" she was crying, and through a mist of pain I could see the lights on the Ohio bank, not far away on our right. If only we could make the shore, we might hide, or stagger into Portsmouth itself and get assistance, but then my wound betrayed me, my leg wouldn't answer, and I sank down on the ice.
We weren't fifty yards from the shore, with fairly level ice ahead, but the feeling had gone from my limb. I looked round; Buck and his fellows were floundering across the ice a bare hundred yards away. Cassy's voice was crying:
"Up! Up! Only a little farther! Oh, try, try!"
"Rot you!" cries I. "I'm shot! I can't!"
She gave an inarticulate cry, and then by God, she seized my arms, stooped into me, and somehow managed to half-drag, halfcarry me across the ice. There must have been amazing strength in the slim body, for I'm a great hulking fellow, and she was near exhaustion. But she got me along, until we fell in a heap close to the bank, and then we slithered and floundered through the icefilled shallows, and dragged ourselves up the muddy slope of the Ohio bank.39
"Free soil" sobs Cassy. "Free soil!" And a bullet smacked into the bank between us to remind her that we were still a long way from safety. That shot must have done something to my muscular control, for I managed to hobble up the bank, with Cassy hauling at me, and then we stumbled forward towards the lights of Portsmouth. It was only half a mile away, but try running half a mile with a bullet hole in your rump. With Cassy's arm round me I could just stagger; we plunged ahead through the gloaming, and there were figures on the road ahead, people staring at us and calling out. Just before we reached them, we passed a tree, and my eye caught the lettering on a great yellow bill that had been stuck there. It read something about "Great Meeting Tonight, All Welcome", and in large letters the names "Lincoln" and "Smith". I was gasping, all in, but I remembered that the little tabby man on the steamboat had been Smith, and he had said Lincoln was speaking in Portsmouth. And I had sense enough to realise that wherever Lincoln was there would be enemies of slavery and friends to all fugitives like us. Two hours ago I'd been wanting to avoid him like the pox, but now it was life or death, and there was something else stirring in my head. I don't know why it was, but I remembered that big man, and his great hard knuckles and dark smiling eyes, and I thought, by God, get to Lincoln! Get to him; we'll be safe with him. They won't dare touch us if he's there. And as Cassy and I stumbled along the road, and I heard voices calling out in concern: "Who are they? What is it? Great snakes, he's bleeding — look, he's been shot," I managed to find the breath to cry out: