The lightning blazed across the
river thrice, and he heard a mutter which was not that of cannon.
Then came rain and a rushing wind and the surface of the river was
troubled grievously. It rose up in waves like those of a lake, and
Harry's boat rocked and tumbled so badly that in a few minutes it was
half-full of water.
Fearing he might sink, carrying with him his great message, he pulled
again, but fiercely now, for the southern bank and the shelter of the
bushes, which, fortunately for him, grew here in the water's edge.
He shoved his boat with all his might among them, as their tops snapped
and crackled in the hurricane. But he knew he was safe there, and he
continued to push until it reached the edge of the land.
The river would be swollen by another storm, but for the present it did
not bother him greatly. He was more immediately concerned with his wish
to get back to Lee as soon as possible, and he was grateful for that
dense clump of bushes, growing in the very water's edge, because the wind
was blowing like a hurricane and the waves were chasing one another on
the Potomac, like the billows on a lake. He was a fair oarsman, but it
would have taken greater skill than his to have kept his boat afloat in
the tempestuous river.
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