Suddenly there came from the treetop a yell which was no boyish
expression of exuberance of spirits. It was something which made Ab leap
from the excavation as he heard it and reach the side of Oak as the
latter came literally tumbling down the bole of the tree of watching.
"Run!" Oak said, and the two darted across the valley and reached the
forest and clambered into safe hiding among the clustering branches.
Then, in the intervals between his gasping breath, Oak managed to again
articulate a word:
"Look!" he said.
Ab looked and, in an instant, realized how wise had been Oak's alarming
cry and how well it was for them that they were so distant from the clump
of trees so near the river. What he saw was that which would have made
the boys' fathers flee as swiftly had they been in their children's
place. Yet what Ab looked upon was only a waving, in sinuous regularity,
of the rushes between the tree clump and the river and the lifting of a
head some ten or fifteen feet above the reed-tops. What had so alarmed
the boys was what would have disturbed a whole tribe of their kinsmen,
even though they had chanced to be assembled, armed to the teeth with
such weapons as they then possessed. What they saw was not of the common.
Very rarely indeed, along the Thames, had occurred such an invasion.
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