A hand gripped the gunwale. Eliza smashed it with the butt of the pistol and it went away. But a minute later it reappeared, bleeding, somewhere else – followed by another hand, then elbows, then a head. Eliza aimed the pistol between the blinking eyes and pulled the trigger; the flint whipped around and cast off a feeble spark but nothing further happened. She turned the weapon around, thinking to smash him on the head, but he raised a hand to parry the blow, and she thought better of it. Instead she stood up, gripped the handles of a gun-chest, heaved it up off the deck, and, just as he was whipping one leg over the gunwale, launched it into his face with a thrust of her hips. He fell off the boat. The dragoons on the shore opened fire and splintered a bench, but they missed Eliza. Still, the sight of those craters of fresh clean wood that had been torn into the benches crushed any sense of relief she might have felt over getting rid of the swimmer.